Once, a long time ago, Mendy had been white. But a lifetime on and by the sea had turned the part of his face that wasn't covered by a salt-and-pepper beard to the colour and texture of an old baseball mitt. He belonged in a hammock on some pirate ship bound for Hispaniola, with a hornpipe in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other. He finished what he was doing and didn't seem to notice me until the crane was out of the way and even then all he said was 'Senor Hausner.'

I nodded back at him. 'Mendy.'

He fetched a half-smoked cigar from the breast pocket of his grubby shirt and plugged it into a space between beard and moustache and spent the next few minutes while we talked patting himself down for a light.

'Mendy, this is Senorita Otero. She's coming on the boat with me. I told her it was just a crummy fishing boat, only she and her suitcase appear to be under the illusion that we're going sailing on the Queen Mary.'

Mendy's eyes flicked between Melba and me as if he had been watching a game of table tennis. Then he smiled at her and said, 'But the Senorita is absolutely right, Senor Hausner. The first rule of going to sea is to be prepared for absolutely anything.'

'Thank you,' said Melba. 'That's what I said.'

Mendy looked at me and shook his head. 'Clearly you know nothing about women, Senor,' he said.

'About as much as I know about boats,' I said.

Mendy chuckled. 'For your sake, I hope it's a little more than that.'

He led the way out of the boatyard and down to the L-shaped pontoon where a wooden launch was moored. We stepped aboard and sat down. Mendy tugged a motor into life and then steered us out into the bay. Five minutes later we were tying up alongside a thirty-five-foot wooden sports-fishing boat.