The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter by Desmond Bagley Read Free Book Online

coast, thus making a complete circumnavigation of Africa. Jean had a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Perhaps we’ll bring that gold back with us,’ she said.
    But two months later the blow fell.
    I had designed a boat for Bill Meadows and had sent him the drawings for approval. By mishap the accommodation plans had been left out of the packet, so Jean volunteered to take them to Fish Hoek where Bill lives.
    It’s a nice drive to Fish Hoek along the Chapman’s Peak road with views of sea and mountain, far better than anything I have since seen on the Riviera. Jean delivered the drawings and on the way back in the twilight a drunken oaf in a high-powered American car forced her off the road and she fell three hundred feet into the sea.
    The bottom dropped out of my life.
    It meant nothing to me that the driver of the other car got five years for manslaughter—that wouldn’t bring Jean back. I let things slide at the yard and if it hadn’t been for Harry Marshall the business would have gone to pot.
    It was then that I tallied up my life and made a sort of mental balance sheet. I was thirty-six years old; I had a good business which I had liked but which now I didn’t seem to like so much; I had my health and strength—boat-building and sailing tend to keep one physically fit—and I had no debts. I even had money in the bank with more rolling in all the time.
    On the other side of the balance sheet was the dreadful absence of Jean, which more than counter-balanced all the advantages.
    I felt I couldn’t stay at the yard or even in Cape Town, where memories of Jean would haunt me at every corner. I wanted to get away. I was waiting for something to happen.
    I was ripe for mischief.
VII
    A couple of weeks later I was in a bar on Adderley Street having a drink or three. It wasn’t that I’d taken to drink, but I was certainly drinking more than I had been accustomed to. I had just started on my third brandy when I felt a touch at my elbow and a voice said, ‘Hallo, I haven’t seen you for a long time.’
    I turned and found Walker standing next to me.
    The years hadn’t dealt kindly with Walker. He was thinner, his dark, good looks had gone to be replaced by a sharpness of feature, and his hairline had receded. His clothes were unpressed and frayed at the edges, and there was an air of seediness about him which was depressing.
    ‘Hallo,’ I said. ‘Where did you spring from?’ He was looking at my full glass of brandy, so I said, ‘Have a drink.’
    ‘Thanks,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll have a double.’
    That gave me a pretty firm clue as to what had happened to Walker, but I didn’t mind being battened upon for a couple of drinks, so I paid for the double brandy.
    He raised the glass to his lips with a hand that trembled slightly, took a long lingering gulp, then put the glass down, having knocked back three-quarters of the contents. ‘You’re looking prosperous,’ he said.
    ‘I’m not doing too badly.’
    He said, ‘I was sorry to hear of what happened to your wife.’ He hurried on as he saw my look of inquiry. ‘I read about it in the paper. I thought it must have been your wife—the name was the same and all that.’
    I thought he had spent some time hunting me up. Old friends and acquaintances are precious to an alcoholic; they can be touched for the odd drink and the odd fiver.
    ‘That’s finished and best forgotten,’ I said shortly. Unwittingly, perhaps, he had touched me on the raw—he had brought Jean back. ‘What are you doing now?’
    He shrugged. ‘This and that.’
    ‘You haven’t picked up any gold lately?’ I said cruelly. I wanted to pay him back for putting Jean in my mind.
    ‘Do I look as though I have?’ he asked bitterly. Unexpectedly, he said, ‘I saw Coertze last week.’
    ‘Here—in Cape Town?’
    ‘Yes. He’d just come back from Italy. He’s back in Jo’burg now, I expect.’
    I smiled. ‘Did he have any gold with him?’
    Walker shook his head. ‘He