Free Hollow Mountain by Thomas Mogford Page A

the very latest.’
    Jardine drained his cup then assessed Spike’s face. ‘You don’t have a musician in the family, do you? A mother? An aunt?’
    Spike felt his instinctive dislike of the man harden. ‘The former.’
    ‘That must be why you look so familiar. I’m sure your mother gave my eldest violin lessons. Must have been . . . what, eighteen years ago? She used to come to our house after school. Name of . . . Missoni?’
    ‘Mifsud.’
    ‘Mifsud . . . Well, well, well.’ He laughed, stroking what remained of his cleft chin. ‘But you’re a Sanguinetti, I thought?’ He kept the ‘g’ hard in the local Gibraltarian way – San- ghin -etti. Really must have been on the Rock a while.
    ‘My mother taught under her maiden name.’
    ‘Never forget a face,’ Jardine said, nodding contentedly as he chewed. ‘It’s a useful skill out here, of course, given how close the community . . .’ He let the sentence fall, with its innuendoes of interbreeding.
    ‘You two rubbing along?’ Clohessy murmured to Spike as he arrived back at the table.
    ‘Finding common ground,’ Jardine said.
    ‘What was it you were saying the other day, Hugh? Thirty thousand locals? In an area of six square kilometres?’
    ‘It is indeed a small world, Mort,’ Jardine replied.
    ‘How about Simon Grainger?’ Spike said. ‘Did you come across him?’
    Something in Spike’s tone caused a hush to fall around the table. Jardine smiled and continued eating. ‘What about him?’ he asked, spraying pink crumbs of pâté into the close air.
    ‘His widow came to see me,’ Spike said. ‘She thinks the military police botched the investigation into his death.’
    The silence that followed was oppressive. Clohessy shifted in his chair as a team member scrambled to revive an earlier conversation. A Gibraltarian had recently taken the crown in the Miss World contest; apparently the mix of émigré races on the Rock had worked to create an exceptionally beautiful local population.
    ‘Your client is mistaken,’ Jardine resumed.
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘I imagine she didn’t mention the pathologist’s report.’
    ‘Was that a military pathologist?’
    Jardine either missed or ignored the tone. ‘There was a cocktail of antidepressants in the man’s blood, Spike. Cipramil. Zoloft. Poor sap. We thought it best kept out of the press for the family’s sake.’ He shot Spike another glance. ‘It’s not easy for a child when a parent commits suicide.’
    The tension was punctured by a shout from the other side of the cabin. ‘Sir,’ Mike the American called to Clohessy, ‘our Spanish friends are back.’ He tapped at his keyboard and the monitor switched to a view from the Trident ’s topmast. Approaching from the south was a police speedboat, a grey machine gun mounted on its rear deck. Spike recognised the red and gold livery of the Guardia Civil.
    ‘’Kin ’ell,’ Dougie muttered, getting to his feet. ‘Third time this week.’
    ‘What’s the problem?’ Jardine asked, looking from face to face.
    ‘Spanish coastguards,’ Clohessy replied. ‘They say we’re trespassing in their waters.’
    Jardine gave a snort. ‘Typical Slopis . Whole country’s on its uppers so they have to pirate British waters.’
    ‘This will be about the Estrecho Oriental,’ Spike said.
    ‘That’s what they’ve been saying on the loudhailer. What does it mean?’ asked Clohessy.
    ‘It’s a marine nature reserve. The Spanish refuse to recognise the existence of Gibraltarian waters. They claim they now have legal backing from the EU, as the European Court of Justice unwittingly passed a motion declaring that half our waters fall within a Spanish conservation area.’
    Mike tapped at the microphone, preparing to make an announcement over the Trident’s speaker system.
    ‘It’s specious,’ Spike went on. ‘Any state recognised by the UN has jurisdiction over at least three nautical miles off its own shore. That takes precedence over any