Authors: Gordon Brown
The space beyond was empty and, at the back there was
another small hatch. Sunlight shone from beyond and it was through this gap
that the air was coming.
I pulled myself up and into the small space, reached
out and grasped the hatch. I pushed it and it started to fall away. I caught it
before it fell open and crawled a bit further into the space, grateful for the
cool air.
Beneath me was a metal walkway - ridged to prevent
slipping and bordered with two small metal edges about an inch proud of the
surface, running the length of both sides. It was a gangplank. I’d seen a few
in the bigger boats at the marina. They slipped out of the rear of the boats
like tongues to form a bridge between the marina pontoons and the boat.
The boat I was on had been side into the pontoon and
the gangplank had been stored. I felt along the underside of the gangplank and
realised that it was telescopic. My feet were hanging out into the engine room
and my face was inches from the hatch.
The cool draft was being drawn in by the wake of the
boat. As the boat progressed the rear caused a minor vacuum and air rushed in
to fill it. The only down side was that occasionally the exhaust from the
engines would get caught in the vacuum and pour into the space. But, compared
to the hell-hole I had been in, this was sweet.
I wanted to pop the hatch to let more air in but
anyone sitting at the back of the boat might see the door open and wonder why.
I risked cracking it a little more and this increased the flow of fresh air.
If someone opened the engine room hatch my feet would
be in plain sight, but there was fuck all I could do about this. I could curl
up for a little while but the space was too small to stay that way for long.
Anyway all I could hope was that the more miles we put between boat and
Mallorca
, the
less likelihood that they would turn back if I was found.
I must have dozed off at some point because I was
woken by the noise of the engine note dropping. The engine was kicked into idle
and immediately the movement of the boat took on a much more unstable wobble. I
wondered if we were at our destination but it seemed too soon.
There were voices above me but the engines had set up
a ringing in my ears that made it impossible to make out what they were saying.
It reminded me of the time when I was twelve years old
and had sneaked into the Apollo in
Glasgow
to watch Deep Purple. The ringing in my ears had
lasted three days. I reckoned that by the time I got to
Barcelona
the
ringing would still be going at Christmas.
With the boat now still, the flow of fresh air stopped
and the gangplank space soon took on the temperature of the engine room. The
rocking continued which suggested we were not moored up and when I caught the
clink of glasses I figured they had stopped for lunch.
My throat was dry and the
2 litre
bottle of water had long
since gone. I reached for the little hatch and cracked it a little more and
pushed my head into the gap. It wasn’t much cooler but it was better than
nothing.
Forty minutes crawled by and I was on the point of
giving up again when the engine fired up and we lurched forward. The movement
caught me by surprise and I let go of the hatch. It fell away - banging against
the hull. I froze, waiting for someone to notice, but nothing happened. I tried
to reach out and pull the hatch closed but I would have needed to lean my head
and shoulders out to reach it, and that was asking for trouble. I left it
alone.
The air flowed freely, now joined by salt spray. I
could see the
Mediterranean
framed where the hatch door had been. There was no
sign of land.
An hour later a large black and white ship slid across
my little picture frame. The words Barcelona-Mahon were writ large on the side.
I smiled. At least we were on the main ferry route and this suggested that we
were still on track for
Barcelona
.
Around
five
o’clock
the engine dropped its note
again. In the last hour I had seen an increasing number of boats and ships that
suggested we were getting closer to land. Pulling myself forward I risked
poking the top of my head out and was rewarded with the sight of the rising
cliff that sat above the commercial
port
of
Barcelona
. I knew that on top of the cliff sat the Parc de Montjuic
and just out of sight was the old Olympic Stadium.
The boat purred along parallel to the shore, keeping
the commercial port on her left until we reached the entrance to the main
marina. I wriggled back into the engine room and felt a wall of heat wash over
me. Closing up the door to the gangplank, I crawled around the engine and back
into my cubby hole.
The boat seemed to take an age before the engine was
killed and the guys upstairs stopped moving around and got off. I waited for
another ten minutes to make sure they were gone and crawled back through the
engine room before opening the main hatch. For the first time in nearly twenty
hours I stood up and felt my back crack. The boat was deserted and I wasted no
time getting off the bloody thing.
I got my bearings and headed for the exit from the
marina.
Half an hour later, and a full two litres of Coke in
my stomach, I was in a public toilet at the bottom of Las Ramblas. My face in
the mirror was black with diesel smoke and I was sporting the kind of hair that
you get by plugging your fingers into the mains.
Stripping to my waist I did the best I could to clean
my hair, face and arms. I scrubbed out my armpits and retired to a cubicle and
slipped out of the rest of the clothes and put on the spare stuff from the
plastic bag. I bundled the soiled clothes into the bag and ‘over skooshed’ some
deodorant on all offending parts.
Back at the sink I brushed my teeth and straightened
myself up.
I walked out into the evening and found Las Ramblas
rammed with tourists and pretty people going for a walk.
The place was alive. Chatting, drinking and eating
were the norm as I wandered up and away from the sea. I passed a row of living
statues, all of them impressively made up.
One, a small evil looking dwarf had painted his entire
body, including his tongue, green and delighted in slobbering and gibbering at
tourists who approached him. No one dared go near him and I wondered how he
made any money as the statues relied on tourists filling the plates or hats that
sat in front of them.
I turned into the gothic quarter, made my way to a
small internet café and found a terminal. Ordering up three cokes and a coffee
I added a spectacularly sticky bun and the waiter looked at me with a look that
said ‘you greedy bastard’.
I pulled up the Ryanair site and after a major
struggle booked the last flight out of Girona that night at an exorbitant
price. By my reckoning I had three hours to make the flight.
I killed the cokes and the coffee and wolfed down the
bun before heading back into the night. I walked up Las Ramblas to the square
at the top and over to El
Corte Inglis
,
Spain
’s’ answer to Debenhams, and jumped in one of the
taxis sitting there. The driver’s face lit up when I said Girona. I asked how
much and he said a hundred Euros. I winced but nodded my head, and we were
away.
The taxi drive took over an hour and I was dropped at
a building site that doubled as an airport. The place was tourist city but I
put on my patient head and joined the queue for my plane.
I’m sitting in the middle of a row of three seats,
with a snoring man who keeps trying to use my left shoulder as a pillow, and a
woman who has drunk herself into a stupor on my right. Around me the plane is
quiet and the lights low.
Bring on tomorrow.
I got in late last night. I assumed Martin was in bed
and I didn’t wake him. When I got up in the morning he was gone. I wasn’t
actually sure if he had been in. A quick peek in his room and it didn’t look
slept in. Then again he was neat and probably made the bed up before he left.
As I yack into this thing, there is still no sign of him and it has gone
ten o’clock
at night.
The day has been a quiet one. I went over the events
in
Mallorca
until I was blue in the face but I can’t make head nor tail of them.
The whole thing was a set up. Of that there is no doubt, but the question is
why and why in that manner?
If Dupree has decided I am excess baggage then he
could have taken me down long ago. I have one working theory, and it is a poor
one at best.
I’m thinking that Dupree knew of Spencer’s intentions
and also found out about the box in
Mallorca
. He could have raided it, removed anything that might
incriminate him and have left the single sheet of paper for anyone else that
came along. When someone was fool enough to appear, then the local goon squad
were alerted and that was why I was caught bang to rights in the shop.
As such there may be no pre-meditation in all of this.
I simply followed the trail that someone else had already trodden. What I can’t
figure is how they knew I was in the shop at that particular moment. Maria
might have been in on it and the whole ‘helping me’ thing was a game. It would
certainly explain the ease with which she decided to lend me a hand. But then
why hit the alarm and save me? If she was in on it she could have just left me
to the goon patrol. So if she didn’t alert them then who did and why?
I haven’t got any answers to this one yet. I’ll front
up with Martin when he gets back and see if he has any ideas.
No sign of Martin. When he was still A.W.O.L. on
Friday I put it down to him going away for the evening and not informing me.
However he should have been back Friday night as a minimum, as he was picking
me up from the return flight. I fully expected him to appear on Friday evening
in a rage, having driven out to
Glasgow
airport only to discover I wasn’t on the plane.
I’ve tried his mobile but it isn’t even tripping to answer
machine. It simply rings out and then dies. On Saturday I tried a few of his
usual haunts but with no success. I didn’t push too hard. If Dupree wants me
I’m not going to spread myself around town and advertise my whereabouts. I’m
assuming that Martin’s house is safe, if for no other reason than that I would
be dead by now if Dupree wanted me and knew I was holed up with Martin.
Mallorca
is
still spinning in my head but I’m no further forward.
They found me. It was gone
midnight
last night and I was
watching ‘A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn
’ on TCM - a weepie but a good one. I heard the door
handle being turned and expected Martin to walk in, but when I saw the goon
patrol from
Mallorca
bowl into the room I knew I was in a world of
trouble.
Fortunately I hadn’t been on the giggle juice and my
head was clear. They rolled in and I rolled off the settee and leapt to my
feet. They headed for me but I was into the kitchen and out the back door like
a cat with a poker up its arse. They gave chase but it was dark and I simply
sprinted into the field behind Martin’s house and circled back on myself. I lay
flat as the goon patrol squelched around for ten minutes and left.
I was in no position to move on. I needed my stuff
from the house.
I sat for an hour in the chill and then approached the
back of the house. There was no sound from within and I clambered onto the roof
of the old coal hut with all the grace of a cat fifteen years past its prime.
My bedroom window sits above the hut and the latch on
the window gave easily to a penknife. I climbed through the window and gathered
up my stuff. Bag packed I went to the bedroom door and listened. If I was going
to be out on the street for the night I could do with my jacket and some food.
Both were downstairs.
I listened and I could hear the TV still playing out
the end of the movie but nothing else. If the goons were in the house then they
were playing it quiet.
I opened the bedroom door a touch and slipped out onto
the small landing. The stairs in front of me dropped straight down to the front
door. The first three steps were hidden from view but after that you could be
seen from the living room.
I bent down and placed my hands on the first step and
leant forward. The bit of the room I could see looked empty. I pushed my head a
little further until the fireplace came into view and there was still no sign
of life. Dropping my right hand one more stair I leant down and took in most of
the rest of the room. Empty.
I stood up, grabbed a lungful of air and walked down
the stairs. The front door was frosted glass but you could still see shapes
through it and I tried my best to avoid it by leaping from the middle of the
staircase straight into the room. As I landed I froze, waiting for an attack
from either the kitchen or the front door. Nothing happened and I crossed to
the kitchen door. The light was off and in the dark I loaded up on chocolate,
crisps and diet Irn Bru.