The Golden Keel. Desmond Bagley

of boat have you got?’

      ‘A Fairmile,’ he said. ‘I’ve re-engined it, of course.’

      I knew of the Fairmiles, but I had never seen one close up. They had been built in the hundreds during the war for harbour defence. The story was that they were built by the mile and cut off as needed. They were 112 feet overall with powerful engines and could work up over twenty knots easily, but they had the reputation of being bad rollers in a cross sea. They were not armoured or anything like that, being built of wood, and when a few of them went into St Nazaire with the Campbelltown they got shot up very badly.

      After the war you could buy a surplus Fairmile for about five thousand quid and they had become a favourite with the smugglers of Tangier. If Metcalfe had re-engined his Fairmile, he had probably gone for power to outrun the revenue cutters and his boat would be capable of at least twenty-six knots in an emergency. Sanford would have no chance of outrunning a boat like that if it came to the push.

      ‘I’d like to see her sometime,’ I said. There was no harm in looking over a potential enemy.

      ‘Sure,’ said Metcalfe expansively. ‘But not just yet. I’m going out tomorrow night.’

      That was good news – with Metcalfe out of the way we might be able to go about our business undisturbed. ‘When are you coming back?’ I asked.

      ‘Some time next week,’ he said. ‘Depending on the wind and the rain and suchlike things.’

      ‘Such as those French Security bastards?’

      ‘That’s right,’ he said carelessly. ‘Let’s eat.’

      II

      Metcalfe made us free of his flat and said we could live there in his absence – the servants would look after us. That afternoon he took me round town and introduced me to several people. Some were obviously good contacts to have, such as a ship’s chandler and a boat builder. Others were not so obviously good; there was a villainous-looking café proprietor, a Greek with no discernible occupation and a Hungarian who explained volubly that he was a ‘Freedom Fighter’ who had escaped from Hungary after the abortive revolution of 1956. I was particularly cynical about him.