The Khufra Run

Hippies, they will tell you, are God’s own chosen people. Flower folk. Gentle souls who only want to drop out of the hell that is modern industrial society. Maybe that was true once when they were content with marijuana, but things have changed since they got on to heroin and L.S.D., and most of the crowd who’d washed up on the shores of Ibiza had drifted up from the bottom of a cess pool in my estimation.

The character who crouched a yard or two away, chest heaving as he fought for breath, was a vintage specimen. His black hair hung well below his shoulders and he wore a plaited leather headband, a scarlet shirt secured by a broad leather belt with a round brass buckle, six inches across, that glowed in the headlights like a small moon. The one incongruous feature were the wire spectacles, the eyes glinting behind them like some malevolent fox, on finding the farmer between him and the chicken.

I didn’t need to hear his crazed laugh to know he was as high as a kite or the sight of his shaking hands. It was round about then that two more came crashing out of the pine trees, one of them losing his balance and arriving in an untidy heap in the middle of the road. He got to his feet as the other joined him and they ranged themselves behind Redshirt.

They really were quite something. Identical twins from the look of them and barefooted. Filthy, ragged creatures with tangled beards and long, matted hair, like something out of a child’s nightmare about wild men from the woods coming to get you.

Redshirt spread his arms wide and said in a surprisingly soft voice, ‘Plenty for everyone, man. You wait your turn is all.’

I said to the girl, ‘Get in the jeep. You’ll find a reefer jacket in the back.’

As I opened the door for her he came in fast and when he was close enough, I gave him a good, old-fashioned boot in the crutch. In other circumstances it might have killed or crippled him, but the fact that I was only wearing canvas rope-soled sandals took a little of the steam out of things.

In any event, the end result was perfectly satisfactory. He kept on going for a moment, carried forward by the momentum of his own rush, did a rather neat somersault and ended up in the ditch at the side of the road, curled into a very tight ball.

I shoved the girl into the jeep and scrambled in beside her as one of the Terrible Twins howled like a dog and rushed me. I gave him the door full in the face, rammed my foot down hard and took the jeep forward. I had a final impression of the other gibbering like some great ape in the headlights, then he bounced to one side like a rubber ball and we were away.

The girl leaned over the seat, as exciting and disturbing a sight as any man could wish for, and searched vainly in the shadows for the reefer coat. I gave it half-a-mile, just to be on the safe side, then pulled into the side of the road on a small bluff that overlooked the sea. I found the coat, gave it to her then got out of the jeep and walked to the edge of the cliffs. As I lit a cigarette the door slammed behind me. When I turned, the girl was watching me. She’d buttoned the reefer to the neck and turned up the sleeves, but it was still five sizes too large. The contrast between how she now looked and her former condition was incongruous enough to be almost funny.

She came forward, hands in pockets and I offered her a cigarette which she refused. ‘Are you all right?’ I said.

Her answer was to collapse against me with a long, shuddering sigh. I got an arm around her quickly and held on tight.

After a while, she pulled away. ‘Thank you. I’m all right now.’ Her English was excellent, but with a pronounced French accent.

I said, ‘I’d choose my company a little more carefully another time if I were you.’

She ignored that one and turned to look out to sea again. ‘It is really very beautiful, this world of ours, don’t you agree?’

Which, considering what had gone before, was calculated to take the wind out of anyone’s sails. But she was right, of course. It was a night to thank God for.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.’

She looked up at me, frowning slightly. ‘You’re a strange man. You can be so gentle, yet back there …’

‘I know, angel,’ I said. ‘Red in tooth and claw. I served my apprenticeship in a rough school. Of course, I could have passed by on the other side. Would you have preferred that?’

‘Please forgive me. I’m being very stupid.’ She held out her hand. ‘My name is Claire Bouvier and I’m really very grateful.’

I held on to that hand for a moment longer than was strictly necessary, not for romantic reasons, but out of simple curiosity at discovering how work-roughened the palm was. She just didn’t look the type.

‘Jack Nelson,’ I said. ‘Was I in time back there?’

She took another of those deep breaths. ‘Yes, Mr Nelson. You were in time.’

‘That’s all right then. Where are you staying?’

‘A hotel in Ibiza on the Avenida Andenes close to the pier where the boat leaves for Formentera.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a friend who has a villa about a mile from here. I’ll take you there first, get you some clothes, then I’ll take you to your hotel. Or to the police - it’s up to you.’

‘No - no police.’

The reaction was sharp and definite.

I said, ‘Why not? They’d probably run them down without too much difficulty, the state I left them in.’

‘No, they’ve been punished enough.’ She was almost angry. ‘And it wasn’t that kind of assault. It wasn’t how it looked. Don’t you understand?’

Curiouser and curiouser, and I think she was on the point of telling me more, but I had enough troubles of my own to carry without taking on anyone else’s.

‘Your affair,’ I said. ‘Anyway, let’s get going.’

I moved to the jeep, opened the door. When I turned she was still standing there at the cliff edge.

‘For God’s sake,’ I said. ‘If I’d wanted to rape you I’d have been at it by now. And you’re not my type. Thin as a rail and your hair’s too short.’

She didn’t move an inch. Just stood there looking at me gravely, her face pale in the moonlight. I suddenly had that vaguely helpless feeling one gets on occasions when faced with a stubborn child, intent only on going its own way.

I said as gently as I could, ‘All right, you’ve had a rough night, I understand that, but you’ve got to start trusting people again. My friend’s place is no more than a mile from here and she’s a woman so she’ll be able to fit you up with some clothes, give you anything you want. You may have heard of her. Her name is Lillie St Claire.’

‘The film actress?’

‘The very same.’

She came forward slowly, looking suddenly rather forlorn in that ridiculously large reefer coat and held out her hand again. ‘Forgive me for doubting you, my friend, but I see now that you are a good man in spite of yourself.’

Speechless and utterly defeated, I climbed in beside her and drove away.

Lillie’s place was a typical Ibizencan villa. What the locals called a finca, only on a grander scale than most. A great Moorish palace named the Villa Rose built on various levels to fit into the landscape at the end of the point. Castillian arches, iron-grilled windows, the whole so white that in the heat of the day it hurt to look at it.

A high wall surrounded the entire estate, palms nodding beyond, black against the night sky. The great, iron gates were locked tight. The old gnarled peasant who emerged from the hut, complete with Alsatian on a chain, flashed a torch at us.

‘It’s me, Jose,’ I called.

He nodded without a word and returned to the hut, dragging the dog at his heels. A moment later the gates swung open and I drove through.

I could smell the lemon grove although I could not see it, the almond trees and palms swayed gently in the slight breeze, their branches dark feathers against the night sky. And everywhere there was the rattle of water. I pulled in beside the fountain at the bottom of the steps which led up to the great oak front door. When I got out Claire Bouvier joined me reluctantly.

‘You don’t need to worry,’ I said. ‘Most of the servants come in during the day. At night there’s only an old crone called Isabel who does the cooking and Carlo, the chauffeur.’

She gazed at me blankly. ‘She needs a chauffeur at night.’

‘You know how it is,’ I said. ‘No knowing when she might feel like a ride.’

I had pulled the chain at the side of the door and it swung open instantly to reveal Isabel, a gaunt old woman who had never ever uttered a word in my presence, though whether this was from some personal dislike of me I’d never been able to discover.

She wore traditional dress as always. Blue shawl, a tight-fitting black bodice beautifully embroidered in gold, a black apron worn over the long ankle-length skirt. As usual, she didn’t have a thing to say. Not even a flicker of emotion showed on that gnarled old face at the sight of the Bouvier girl, who to Ibizan eyes must have looked eccentric in the extreme.

‘Don’t look her full in the face or you’ll turn to stone,’ I told the girl, and I led the way across the wide hall with its beautiful red and white ceramic tiles and mounted a curving staircase to the landing above.

Glass doors stood open to the night and beyond, most of the garden at that level was taken up by a superb illuminated swimming pool. The faithful Carlo was standing beside a wrought-iron table gazing up at the high diving board, a great ox of a man, shoulders bulging beneath the snow-white jacket.

‘The Love Goddess,’ Claire Bouvier whispered as she looked up at the slim figure in the black costume poised on the edge of the board.

‘That’s what they call her,’ I said, and as Carlo turned sharply, I raised my voice and cried, ‘Heh, Lillie, come down out of there. You’ve got visitors.’

She waved, then dived a moment later, flashing down through the yellow light, entering the water with hardly a splash. As she surfaced at the side of the pool, Carlo moved in, bathing wrap at the ready. She slipped into it, eyes sparkling, that wide, wide mouth of hers opening into what must surely have been the most devastating smile of all time.

‘Why, Jack, lover. It’s been an age.’ She kissed me, then grabbed an arm reasonably ostentatiously and turned her gaze on Claire Bouvier. ‘I didn’t know we were having a floor show.’

‘Meet Miss Claire Bouvier,’ I said. ‘I just saved her from a fate worse than you know what back along the road a piece.’

‘How perfectly dreadful for you, darling,’ Lillie said, managing to sound as if she didn’t give a tinker’s damn in hell. ‘You must tell me all about it down to every last rapacious detail. When you reach my age, you can’t afford to miss out on anything. You have a swim or something, lover, I’ll see you later.’

‘There’s a thousand of those foul American fags you like in the back of the jeep.’ I said. ‘Plus a case of Bourbon. A present from Turk. Shall I bring them in?’

‘Good heavens, no. You might pull something mysterious. Ruin your sex life. Leave it to Carlo. He’s so much stronger than the rest of us.’

Which was an undeniable fact for I had seen Carlo on occasion, training with weights in the yard by the garage at the back, and stripped he resembled Primo Carnera in his prime. Lillie grabbed the Bouvier girl by the arm and took her inside, Carlo bowed slightly and followed them.

Which left me very much on my own, so I went along to the changing room, found myself a pair of trunks and had a swim.

The salon was an exquisite room which had been based on an ancient Moorish design. The floor was of black and white ceramic tiles and the ceiling was blue, vivid against stark white walls. A log fire burned on the open hearth. I was sprawled at my ease in front of it, one of Carlo’s generously large gin and tonics in my hand, when Lillie came back in.

She really was the most amazing creature I’d ever known. Must have been anywhere up to fifty - had to be to have done the things she had - yet even in the harsh, white heat of the day never seemed to look a day over thirty-five.

Like now, for instance, dressed in a long, black, transparent creation. As far as I could see, she didn’t have a stitch on underneath and her legs must have been giving Marlene Dietrich a hard time for years.

She draped herself elegantly across me and kissed me, that mouth of hers opening wide enough to swallow me whole. When the tongue was finally tired of moving around she lay back with a long sigh.

‘I’ve missed you, lover. Where’ve you been?’

‘Working.’

Carlo appeared, a drinks tray in his gloved hands and gave her a martini. She took it just as she accepted the light he held out for her cigarette, as casually as if he didn’t really exist. He withdrew silently to a position by the terrace.

She said, ‘Where was it these hippies had a go at the kid?’

‘Near the mill at La Grande.’

She emptied her glass and paced restlessly across to the fire. ‘The dirty bastards. They should drive them off the island, every last one of them.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re frightened?’ I said.

She was almost angry when she turned on me. ‘What if I am? They’ve done some funny things. Broken into people’s homes. This is a lovely place …’

‘With Carlo here?’ I demanded. ‘You’ve got to be joking. He’s the original six-at-one-blow man. I thought that was why you kept him around.’

She changed completely, her face illuminated by that dazzling smile, the famous Lillie St Claire smile, as she moved across to Carlo.

‘That’s right. Of course it is. You wouldn’t let them hurt me, would you, Carlo?’

Carlo took the hand she held out to him and kissed it gently. From the look on his face I’d say he’d have torn the arms and legs off anyone who even tried.

She patted his cheek. ‘Bless you, Carlo. Let’s have a movie, shall we? What about The Door to Hell.’

He moved away as silently as usual. She poured another drink and flung herself into the chair next to me. This was a ritual I’d been through many times before. There was a small projection room at the rear of the salon and Carlo handled things at that end, using the smooth white wall next to the fireplace as a screen.

As the lights dimmed I said, ‘What about the girl?’

‘I left her in the bath. She shouldn’t be long. Did she tell you how she came to be mixed up with those creeps?’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘I did. She said she’d arranged to meet a friend at the windmill at La Grande at nine o’clock. She went out there by taxi only he never showed. Then those pigs jumped her.’ She shook her head, ‘The whole thing stinks to high heaven if you ask me.’

‘Her affair, not ours.’

She carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘And her hair.’

‘What about her hair?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not natural. Reminds me of something and I can’t think what. A picture I was in once.’

‘Why don’t you shut up?’ I said. ‘… and let’s enjoy this one which, for a change, I don’t think I’ve actually seen before.’

I think she’d have given me the hard word at that except for the fact that at that moment, her face filled the screen and as usual, she was swept up in the greatest love affair since Antony and Cleopatra. That of Lillie St Claire for Lillie St Claire.

‘1938,’ she said. ‘I’d been in Hollywood two years. My first Oscar nomination.’

She was standing at the top of a great flight of marble stairs in some sort of negligee or other, being menaced by the swords of half-a-dozen Roundheads, who all looked villainous enough to play Capone-style gangsters, and probably did the following week. At the appropriate moment an athletic-looking character in breeches and a white shirt dropped into the picture, a sword between his teeth and proceeded to knock all sorts of hell out of the Roundheads.

‘Jack Desforge,’ she breathed. ‘The best there ever was.’

‘Better than Lillie St Claire?’ I demanded.

‘Damn you, lover, you know what I mean. Dietrich, Joan Crawford. Oh, they were great. Wonderful, wonderful people. They don’t breed them like that any more.’

‘Only you were the greatest.’

‘Look at my last film.’

‘I didn’t know anybody had done.’

I ducked to avoid the glass she threw at me for the film was very much a sore point, an Italian production of the worst kind; a programmer which had sunk, as they say, without trace.

Behind us there was a slight polite cough and Claire Bouvier moved down to join us. She wore a pair of slacks and a polo-necked sweater which combined with the short hair to give her a strangely boyish look.

She looked up in some bewilderment at the sword play on the wall then turned to Lillie and said hesitantly, ‘You have been most kind, Miss St Claire. I will see these things are returned to you tomorrow.’

‘That’s all right, darling. You can give them to the deserving poor when you’ve finished with them.’ Lillie told her.

She didn’t offer to put her up for the night which was much as I had expected for she was never one for competition in that quarter.

I said to Claire Bouvier, ‘All right. Let’s get moving.’

She glanced first at Lillie, then at me, strangely diffident, then went up the steps and out into the hall. Lillie said, ‘Do you fancy her?’

‘I hadn’t thought much about it.’

‘You’d be making a mistake. There’s something funny about that kid.’

She slid her arms about my neck and gave the full treatment, following this with a completely unprintable suggestion breathed into my right ear.

‘Impossible,’ I said.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘We could always try. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour to get down to Ibiza town and back again.’

She kissed me hard, that mouth of hers opening wide again and beyond, I saw Carlo waiting respectfully, his face showing no expression worth noting, yet there was something in the eyes I think. I could almost feel the knife going in between my shoulder blades.

I patted her face, ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘We’ll see,’ and I moved out fast.

She didn’t have much to say for herself on the way down to town. As we passed the mill where it had all begun I said, ‘What in the hell were you doing up here on your own anyway?’

‘I had an appointment to keep. With a friend.’

‘Who didn’t show?’ I was surprised at my sudden surge of anger. ‘He should have his backside kicked, whoever he is.’

She turned and looked at me sharply, but made no comment. I kept my eyes on the road. After a while she said, ‘Tell me about yourself. What do you do?’

‘I’m a charter pilot. I keep a floatplane down at Tijola.’

‘And Miss St Claire - you have known her long?’

‘Long enough.’

We were coming into the outskirts of Ibiza now and I took the direct route in along the Avenida de Espana. There were still plenty of bars open for the night, for Spain at least, was still young, but when I switched off the motor outside the small, waterfront hotel on the Avenida Andenes, it suddenly seemed very quiet.

She got out and moved to the entrance and I followed her. ‘I don’t suppose you’d feel like a drink?’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I’m very tired. You understand?’

‘Of course.’

She held out her hand and I took it, suddenly reluctant to let her go.

‘What can I say?’ she said. ‘I owe you so much.’

‘You could satisfy my curiosity’

She thought about it for a long moment then nodded. ‘Yes, I owe you that at least. You know the Iglesia de Jesus?’

‘One of the most beautiful churches in the island.’

‘Can you meet me there in the morning?’

‘I think so.’

‘Would ten o’clock be too early?’

‘I’ll be there on the dot.’

She took my hand again briefly. ‘Thank you, dear friend,’ she said, reached up and brushed my cheek with the lightest of kisses, then slipped inside.

Which very definitely drove every other thought from my mind, including Lillie. There was something elusive about her. Something indefinable that couldn’t be pinned down. Frankly, it was as irritating as an itch one couldn’t get at to scratch and irritating in another way also. I had a feeling that I was becoming involved in something in spite of myself and any kind of an entanglement where a woman was concerned, was something I preferred to keep well clear of.

I paused on the edge of the kerb to light a cigarette before crossing to the jeep and an old Ford truck came round the corner on two wheels, mounted the pavement and rushed me like a fighting bull in full charge.

I made it into the nearest doorway with very little to spare, was aware of Redshirt leaning out the cab window laughing like a crazy man and then the truck swerved round the corner into the next street and was away.

I didn’t attempt to follow. There’d be another time and I’d had enough action for one night. What I needed now was a long, tall glass of something or other and a cool hand on my fevered brow - which brought me straight back to Lillie.

When I got back to the villa I didn’t bother with the front gate, preferring a less public route out of deference to Lillie’s good name although I sometimes think she simply liked the idea of someone having to climb over the wall to get to her. As usual, she’d turned the electronic warning system off to facilitate matters.

As I came up out of the garden to the terrace outside her bedroom Lillie called out sharply and it wasn’t exactly a cry for help.

The French windows stood open to the night, curtains billowing like white sails and there was a light on inside. Carlo, as far as I could judge, seemed to be performing manfully enough. Certainly a slight, polite cough from the terrace would hardly have helped, so I did the obvious thing and got the hell out of there.

When I got back to Tijola, I stopped at the beach bar and had a large glass of the local brandy, a brew calculated to take the skin off your lips if you were injudicious enough to allow it to touch them. There was a light in the cottage window which didn’t surprise me for at that time Turk was in the habit of turning up most nights.

I found him sprawled across the table, out to the wide. The eye balls were retracted, but his pulse was steady enough. Heroin and Spanish Brandy. I wondered how much longer his system was going to be able to take it as I carried him across to the bed.

I covered him with a blanket, turned to go back to the table and saw a piece of paper pinned to the door with the breadknife. We put the bird to bed for you. Mind your own business in future or next time it’s you.

God knows why I bothered, but I was running when I went out of the door. Not that it mattered because when I reached the slipway, the Otter simply wasn’t there.

Definitely not my night.

3 The Jesus Reredos

I was up at first light and drove into Ibiza where I helped myself to a couple of aqualungs and various other essential items of diving gear from the Mary Grant.

When I got back to Tijola, Turk was still out cold. I tried slapping him awake which did no good at all and when I attempted to get him on his feet he collapsed instantly, boneless as a jellyfish. It was like handling a corpse and I got him back on the bed and left him to it.

So, I was on my own again - the story of my life, or so it seemed. One thing was certain. Whatever had to be done I would have to do alone so I pulled on one of the yellow neoprene wetsuits I’d brought from the Mary Grant, buckled on an aqualung and went to it.

I tried the obvious at first and simply waded into the water from the slipway. The seabed shelved very rapidly at that point so that it was four or five fathoms deep close inshore.

The water was like black glass, giving the illusion of being quite clear and yet visibility was poor, mainly because the sun wasn’t yet out.

I went out, as I have said, in a direct line from the slip-way for perhaps fifty yards, keeping close to the bottom and didn’t see a thing. So I tried another approach and moved back towards the shore, tacking twenty yards to either side of my central line in a slow, painful zig-zag.