‘Buenas dias, señor. Can I help you?’
Susan had always told him that when he faked a smile it was like the grimace of a chimp behind bars in a zoo. He trusted he was doing a better job of it today. ‘I hope you can,’ he said. ‘A friend of mine, Ian Templeton, told me that the berth next to his was for sale. Or rent. He wasn’t sure which. I wondered if you could clarify that for me, and tell me how much it would cost.’ His jaw ached from his chimpanzee smile.
She gave him a curious look. ‘What’s the number of his berth?’
‘I have no idea.’
She sighed. ‘Templeton, you said?’
‘Yes. Ian.’
She tapped her keyboard and manoeuvred her mouse around the desk, peering myopically at the screen in front of her. ‘Yes, here we are. Pantalán 4, berth 405. Which side of it did he say was for sale?’
‘He didn’t’
She glared at him. ‘He didn’t tell you very much, did he?’
He tried to factor apology into his smile. ‘Sorry.’
She frowned at her screen. ‘Well, neither of them are for sale or rent. Are you sure it wasn’t one opposite?’
He shrugged unconvincingly, certain that she could see right through him. ‘Eh... maybe.’
She shook her head again. ‘There’s nothing available on Pantalán 4 at all. I can give you something on 3.’
‘Oh.’ He hadn’t been expecting that. ‘No, no... it’s alright.’
‘Well what kind of boat do you have?’
He hesitated. ‘A... A big one.’ Which was what this excruciatingly lie was turning into.
She frowned. ‘Can you be more specific?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not really. Just, you know... big.’ His smile, he was sure, would have turned milk sour by now. ‘But it’s okay. I’ll talk to him again. Thank you very much for your help.’ And he hurried out before she could ask him anything else, force-feeding the lie to grow from big, like his fictitious boat, to unbelievable.
As if in punishment for lying, the sun seemed to strike him a blow as he stepped again into its relentless heat. He breathed a long sigh of relief. Deception was not his forte. Still, he had established one thing. Cleland kept a boat here, registered to Templeton, at berth number 405 on Pantalán 4.
A motor launch had pulled in to Pantalán 5 to refuel from the Repsol pumps, and he glanced down the quays that stretched away towards the port, gates all locked. No way to take a look at Cleland’s boat without going through official channels. He began to walk back along the access road towards the port and took out his phone, resigned to reporting his discovery to the Jefe. He stopped at Pantalán 4 and saw that the nearside berth was number 401. Counting along, he saw Cleland’s boat berthed at 405. It was a sleek white motor yacht with a long nose like a shark, an impressive superstructure rising towards the stern of the vessel. The sweep of its smoked-glass windows wrapped around the front of the cabin and either side, hiding its interior from the casual observer. Clip and zip canvas covers sealed off the rear entrance. He saw a maker’s name printed high up beneath an external cockpit. Princess 52.
He looked at his phone and saw that he had a 4G signal, so initiated a Google search for the make and model. A second-hand boat for sale came up on his screen almost instantly. This was an expensive beast, 15.95 metres long, or 52 feet 4 inches, which was the source of its model name. It had twin 630-horsepower Volvo diesel engines with a cruising speed of 22 knots. This one had been built in 2000, and still commanded an asking price of €200,000. He had no idea what vintage Cleland’s boat might be, but it looked brand spanking new, so was worth, perhaps, anything up to a million. The Princess 52 had three cabins with room for six guests.
Mackenzie swiped through photographs of the interior. This was a luxury vessel. Beneath the external cockpit, a generous lounge and kitchen area of white leather and polished wood gave on to the internal cockpit. Stairs led down to sleeping quarters below, where the three cabins shared two bathrooms and a shower room.
He stood gazing at it through the bars of the gate with something like awe. He could never have dreamed of owning something like this, but had never aspired to. Boats, he knew, were notoriously expensive to run and maintain, and for most owners would provide only occasional use. A measure of the affluence that Cleland had accumulated by trading in other people’s misery, the price of all the ruined lives he had left in his wake. Mackenzie felt his hackles rise.
‘Hello again.’
He turned, startled, to find the teak-coloured girl in the bikini smiling at him, a bucket and mop in one hand, a box of cleaning fluids beneath her other arm. There was a key dangling from a tab held between her clenched front teeth.
‘Open the gate for me?’ She had difficulty with the p and the f and the m.
It took a moment for him to realize what she meant. He blushed. ‘Of course.’ He removed the key delicately from her mouth to unlock the gate and hold it open for her.
‘You can just drop it in the bucket,’ she said, indicating the key in his hand, and it occurred to him for the first time that she was speaking English. ‘My name’s Sally.’ She glanced at him, inviting a response.
‘John,’ Mackenzie said reluctantly.
‘Dreaming, were you?’ She nodded towards the yachts.
For once the lie sprung quickly to Mackenzie’s lips. ‘No, I just came down to check on my boat and realized I’d left my key at home.’
‘Oh. Which is yours?’
‘The Princess 52.’
She looked along the pantalán and picked it out. ‘Nice one, John. You don’t fancy taking out a little cleaning contract on it, do you?’
‘That’s what you do, is it?’ he said. ‘Clean boats?’
She started walking along the quay and he fell in step beside her.
‘It pays for me to spend the whole season down here. And get a great tan at the same time. I sleep on the boats, too, so I have no accommodation costs. Next year I might go back to Cambridge and finish my degree.’ She smiled. ‘Or the year after. Or maybe I’ll meet some rich yacht owner who’ll sweep me off to some distant blue horizon and I’ll never need to graduate.’ She cocked a mischievous eyebrow in his direction.
He laughed. ‘You’re looking at the wrong man.’
She feigned disappointment. ‘Gay?’
‘Married.’
‘Aren’t they all?’ She gave him a cheerful grin. ‘See you later.’ And she headed off along the pantalán, leaving Mackenzie standing at the stern of the Princess 52. He watched her walk to the far end and climb aboard a long, sleek-looking sail boat. When she had disappeared below, he turned towards Cleland’s boat and saw that it was called Big Rush, one of the many street names for cocaine. It rekindled his anger. But an unzipped flap of the canvas cover that weather-protected the rear deck stilled it before it took hold, replacing it instead with a sudden stab of disquiet. Was it possible that this is where Cleland had been hiding out the whole time, right under their noses?
On full alert now, he stepped carefully from the quay on to the exposed lip of the rear deck and felt the boat dip a little in the water from his weight. He stood listening intently, but all he could hear was the gentle purr of motors propelling boats in and out of the harbour, and the cries of seabirds swooping and wheeling overhead. Across the water, at the far side of the marina, the Varadero la Condesa boatyard was winching a boat from winter storage to take its first dip of the year. Its pristine keel cut into mirrored water sending concentric rings off in light-catching circles.