‘They’re walking round the far side of the bay,’ she said. ‘Asking people.’
‘My name is Roland Britten,’ I said. ‘I live in Newbury, and I’m an accountant. I was kidnapped twelve days ago, and they’ve kept me on that boat ever since, and I don’t know why. So please, whoever you are, if they do manage to get me back there, will you tell the police? I really do most desperately need help.’
There was a short silence. I thought that I must have overdone it; that she didn’t believe me. Yet I’d had to tell her, as a precaution.
She apparently made up her mind. ‘Well then,’ she said briskly, ‘time for you to vanish.’
‘Where to?’
‘My bedroom,’ she said.
She was a great one for punches in the mental solar plexus. In spite of the grimness of things in general, I almost laughed.
‘Can you see me?’ I said.
‘I can see your feet. I saw all of you when you climbed out of the sea and scrambled up here.’
‘And how do I get to your bedroom dressed in a wet shirt and underpants and nothing else?’
‘Do you want to avoid those men, or don’t you?’
There was no answer to that.
‘Stay still,’ she said sharply, though I had not in fact moved. ‘They’re looking this way. Someone over there seems to be pointing in this direction.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Stay still.’ There was a longish pause, then she said, ‘They are walking back along the beach, towards their boat. If they don’t stop there, but come on this way, we will go.’
I waited dumbly, and more or less prayed.
‘There’s a path above us,’ she said. ‘I will hand you a towel. Wrap it round you, and climb up to the path.’
‘Are they coming?’
‘Yes.’
A triangle of brightly striped bathing towel appeared over the rock by my head. There was little I’d ever wanted to do less than stand up out of my insecure hiding place. My nerves were all against it.
‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘Don’t look back.’
I stood up, dripping, with my back to the sea. Pulled the towel towards me, wrapped it round like a sarong, and tackled the rocky upgrade to the path. The respite in the gully had given me back a surprising amount of energy: or perhaps it was plain fear. In any case I climbed the second stage a great deal more nimbly than the first.
‘I’m behind you,’ her voice said. ‘Don’t look back. Turn right when you reach the path. And don’t run.’
‘Yes ma’am,’ I said under my breath. Never argue with a guardian angel.
The path was fringed on both sides with trees, with a mixture of sand and bare rock underfoot. The sunshine dappled through the branches and at any other time would have looked pretty.
When the path widened she fell into step beside me, between me and the sea.
‘Take the branch path to the left,’ she said, drawing level. ‘And don’t walk too fast.’
I glanced at her, curious to see what she looked like. She matched her voice: a no-nonsense middle-aged lady with spectacles and a practical air. Self-confident. Talclass="underline" almost six feet. Thin, and far from a beauty.
She was wearing a pale pink blouse, fawn cotton trousers, and sandshoes, and she carried a capacious canvas beach bag.
Beach. Swimming. In March.
‘Where is this place?’ I said.
‘Cala St Galdana.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Minorca, of course.’
‘Where?’
‘Don’t stop walking. Minorca.’
‘Island next to Majorca?’
‘Of course.’ She paused. ‘Didn’t you know?’
I shook my head. The branch path reached the top of a shallow gradient and began to descend through more trees on the far side.
She peered to the right as we went over the brow.
‘Those men are just coming along the lower path, heading towards where I was sitting. I think it would be a good idea to hurry a little now, don’t you?’
‘Understatement,’ I said.
Hurrying meant stubbing my bare toes on various half-buried stones and feeling the dismal weakness again make rubber of my legs.
‘While they are looking for you on the rocks, we will reach my hotel,’ she said.
I shuffled along and saved my breath. Glanced over my shoulder. Only empty path. No pursuing furies. So why did I feel that they could see through earth and trees and know exactly where to find me?
‘Over that little bridge, and across the road. Over there.’ She pointed. ‘That’s the hotel.’
It was one of the two big white ones. We reached the wide glass doors and went inside. Made it unchallenged across the hall and into the lift. Rose to the fifth floor. She scooped some keys out of her beach bag, and let us in to 507.
We had seen almost nobody on the way. Still enough warm sun for holidaymakers to be out on the beach and for the staff to be sleeping.
507 had a sea-view balcony, twin beds, two armchairs, a yellow carpet, and orange and brown curtains. Regulation hotel room, with almost none of my saviour’s belongings in sight.
She walked over to the glass door, which was open wide, and half stepped onto the balcony.
‘Do you want to watch?’ she said.
I looked cautiously over her shoulder. From that height one could see the whole panorama of the bay. There was the boat, anchored in the centre. There was the dinghy on the sand. The headland where I’d crawled out of the sea was to the right, the path leading to it from the beach showing clearly through the trees like a dappled yellow snake.
Along the path came the two men, my familiar warder in front, making for the sand. They trudged slowly across to the dinghy, still looking continually around, and pushed it into the sea.
They both climbed in. They started the outboard. They steered away from the beach.
I felt utterly drained.
‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ I said.
6
Thanks to telephones, consul, bank, and friends, I flew back to England the following evening, but not before I had collected further unforgettable memories of Miss Hilary Margaret Pinlock.
She asked me my measurements, descended to the local boutiques, and returned with new clothes.
She lent me her bathroom, inspected me cleaned and dressed, and decided to go shopping for a razor. I protested. She went. It was as easy to stop Miss Pinlock as an avalanche.
With some relief I scratched the twelve days’ scruffy dark stubble off my face, one glance in the looking glass having persuaded me that I was not going to look better in a beard. The twelve days of indoor life had left me thin and pale, with grey hollows in cheeks and eye sockets which I didn’t remember having before. Nothing that a little freedom wouldn’t fix.
On her second expedition she had also bought bread, cheese and fruit, explaining that she was there on a package holiday, and that the hotel didn’t cater for random visitors.
‘I’ll go down to dinner at seven as usual,’ she said. ‘You can eat here.’
Throughout all her remarks and actions ran the positive decision-making of one accustomed to command.
‘Are you a children’s nurse?’ I asked curiously.
‘No,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘A headmistress.’
‘Oh.’
The smile came, briefly. ‘Of a girls-only comprehensive, in Surrey.’
With a touch of sardonic humour she watched me reassess her in the light of that revelation. Not a do-gooding bossy spinster, but a fulfilled career woman of undoubted power.
‘Yes. Well...’ she shrugged. ‘If you give me the numbers, I’ll ask the switchboard for your calls.’
‘And I need a bedroom,’ I said.
‘Your friends might return and ask about strangers needing bedrooms,’ she said.
It had occurred to me too. ‘Yes, but...’ I said.