A Coffin For Two

35

Next day we took a stroll round the marina in L’Escala. It was quieter than in July and August, many of the boats having been taken out already for the winter. But there were still hundreds moored in the big basin, and so looking for a single boat was like searching for one anchovy among the shoal.

It didn’t help either that La Sirena turned out to be the most popular name for a small boat in all Catalunya. We must have found a dozen of them before we happened on what we guessed must be Trevor Eames’ boat, moored sharp end in against the quay furthest from the shore.

It was an eighteen-foot sail-boat, with a single mast and a classic wheel, behind the steps leading down to its cabin. La Sirena Two was emblazoned on either side of the bow, and a pair of small pram dinghies were lashed, not to the cabin roof as Gary had said, but to the sides.

Everything else was lashed down too. We tried the cabin door, but it was locked, and the windows were curtained. It was pretty obvious that Trevor was still at sea.

On the way back to St Marti, Prim had an idea. ‘We really should check out the place at Peretellada, shouldn’t we. Just in case the phoney Starr was daft enough to have booked the dinner using his real name.’

‘Fat chance, but yes, you’re right.’

‘Then why don’t I,’ she said, ‘take Davidoff along there with me tomorrow, to ask some questions?’

I looked at her, right eyebrow cocked. ‘Oh yes! After some more courtship.’

She grinned. ‘And why not. A lady likes to be wooed. You still don’t quite realise that, do you?’

All of a sudden, I was miles away, thinking of Jan and my impulse buy in Laing’s. All of a sudden, I was torn in two.

Prim dug me in the ribs. ‘Hey.’

‘Sorry. Of course I do. I’m just not very good at it, that’s all.’

‘Well, it’s time you put in some practice.’

My conscience must have pricked me, for as soon as we reached St Marti, I dropped Prim off and without warning, headed back the way we had come. She was on the terrace when I returned, looking tense. ‘What’s up?’ she said. ‘Why the huff?’

‘No huff,’ I said, and handed her a small brown box. She opened it. Inside, on a white satin cushion, were the gold dolphin earrings which she had admired, pointedly, in a designer jeweller’s window in L’Escala a few evenings before. From behind my back, I produced a single red rose.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve been a bugger lately.’

Holding the rose in one hand and the earrings in the other, she rose up on tiptoe and kissed me.

‘You may not be in the Davidoff class as a romantic,’ she whispered, ‘but I suppose you do your best.’

Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.