by Gordon Brown
The engine kicked into life just before seven thirty and I realised that what I thought was a crap idea took a shovel and dug deep. The noise from the engine, and it was still only on tick over, was deafening. The diesel power plant lay less than three feet from my head and the combination of the noise and vibration blocked out the world. When the engine note deepened there was a slight swaying, and I realised we were moving.
Ten minutes later the driver turned the engine up to eleven and my life became a maelstrom of noise and motion. The boat planed and I rolled towards the cubby hole door. The nose would dip to bite through a wave and I would roll to the front of the boat. Then the boat would lift clear and I would roll back — this process went on endlessly.
As we broke from the bay the current or the waves or some act of nature worked on the side of the boat and gave the up and down motion a side to side lilt. Every so often we would hit a larger than normal wave and my head would be slammed off the roof of the cubby hole.
I was forced to grab a rope coil and wrap it around my head like a Sikh’s turban. It was uncomfortable but gave me some protection against the wave movement. It also dulled the noise a little, but not much. I rearranged the angle I lay at and tried to wedge myself in a way that would reduce the rolling.
I realised that I lacked one vital piece of information that might have made the whole thing bearable. How long would this go on? I had no real idea of what the distance from Mallorca to Barcelona meant in terms of nautical time. The only information I had to go on was the discussion with the men when they said they wanted to get the trip done in daylight. Dusk was twelve hours away and I tried to settle down and ride it out.
Two hours into the journey and I was on the verge of giving up and handing myself in. It was unbearable. Even if they decided to turn back and drop me in Mallorca it had to be better than this.
The throbbing of the engine had hard-wired a headache of growing proportions into my skull. The rope around my head kept slipping off and was chafing my skin. The air was burning hot. The combination of the rising temperature outside and the heat of the engine had driven the atmosphere in the engine room to well beyond something I could survive long.
I opened the cubby hole door and rolled out into the engine room. The noise rose another notch and I crawled round to the hatchway. I was reaching up to push the hatch open when a breath of cool air brushed my wrist. Moving my arm around in the dark I picked up the draught and followed it back to its source. I felt a handle above me and the draught was coming from just beneath it. I crawled back to the cubby hole to get the torch.
Back at the handle I flipped on the light. No one would notice it up top in broad daylight. There was a small door about three feet by three feet in front of me. On my initial recce of the room I had missed it. I pulled on the handle and the door opened outwards and I was washed with cool air. I gulped it in like water to a man in the desert.
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.
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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 cafe 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.
Chapter 55
Thursday August 7 ^th 2008
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.
Chapter 56
Sunday August 10 th 2008
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.
Chapter 57
Monday August 11 ^th 2008
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.
I walked back into the living room and eyed my jacket hanging on a coat peg next to the front door. If anyone was watching then my shadow would be a give away. I walked to the stairs and dropped to my knees, then to my belly and wriggled towards the front door. If someone came in now I was a goner.
I reached the door and slid up the wall until I could relieve the coat peg of my jacket, caught it as it fell and wriggled back to the stairs.
I was half way up the stairs when the front door opened with a vengeance and the goons reappeared. Common sense would have been to lock it but it had never occurred to me.
I flew up the remaining steps, ran into my bedroom, slammed the door behind me, picked u
p my bag and scrambled through the open window. The door to the bedroom bounced off the wall behind me as the goon patrol entered at high speed.
I was on the coal hut roof and, with a leap, I dropped to the concrete below. Above me one of them shouted but I was over the fence and back into the field — this time I didn’t double back I just kept running.
As my breath shortened I began to ease up and turned sharp left. In the far distance I could see the main road through the village of Eaglesham. Behind me there was another shout but it was too far away to be an issue. I made for the light.
The trek was tough — crossing fields in the dark is not easy and I had no light to see by. After an hour I reached the village but stopped short of entering the pool of light that the street lights cast.
I had no idea where I was heading but it needed to be away from here. The goon patrol would not give in easily. Dupree was a bastard of the first order and failure was not tolerated well. The fact that they had been given a second chance and sent in after their failure in Spain was surprising enough.
I skirted the road and made my way through another field — keeping the road to my right. Twice I had to divert to avoid houses and then I hit a stretch of homes running across my path. I picked the one with the lowest fence and jogged through the garden and out onto the road on the other side.
The main road was to my left and knew if I turned right there was the Chinese restaurant on one side and the row of shops, a little further down, on the other side. At this time they would all be shut. Turning right would lead me into an estate and, much as I wanted to play hide and seek with the goon patrol, I needed to put distance between the village and me.
