It was impossible to imagine much else that got started there. A start implied some activity, movement, or even work, and there wasn't much sign of any of these tiring nouns on the sleepy streets of Santiago. Ladders stood around idle and alone, wheelbarrows sat unattended, horses kicked their heels, boats bobbed in the harbour and fishing nets lay drying in the sun. About the only people who appeared to be working were the cops, if you could call it work. Parked up in the shade of the city's pastel-coloured buildings, they sat smoking cigarettes and waiting for things to cool down and warm up, depending on how you looked at it. Probably it was too hot and sunny for trouble. The sky was too blue and the cars were too shiny; the sea was too much like glass and the banana leaves too glossy; the statues were too white and the shadows too short. Even the coconuts were wearing sunglasses.

After a couple of wrong turns I spotted the coaling station of Cincoreales, which was a landmark for finding my way around the shanty town of boatyards, booms, quays, pontoons, dry docks and slipways that serviced the flotilla of boats in Santiago Bay. I pointed the car down a steep, cobbled hill and along a narrow street. Heavy brackets for trams that were no longer running hung over our heads like the rigging of a schooner that had long ago sailed without it. I steered onto the sidewalk in front of an open set of double doors and peered down into a boatyard.

A bearded, weather-beaten man wearing shorts and sandals was manoeuvring a boat that hung from an ancient-looking crane. I didn't mind when the boat clunked against the harbour wall and then hit the water like a bar of soap. But then, it wasn't my boat.

We got out of the Chevy. I fetched Melba's suitcase from the trunk and carried it into the yard, stepping carefully around or over tins of paint, buckets, lengths of rope and hose line, pieces of wood, old tyres, and oil cans. The office in a little wooden hut at the back was no less of a shambles than the yard. Mendy wasn't about to win the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval any time soon, but he knew boats, and since I knew them hardly at all this was just as well.