Canary Islands Mysteries - Books 4-5

2. The Journey South-3

A few more bends, none as sharp as the hairpin, and she was pleased when they were in open country, the road a wriggling snake following the rough terrain of the mountain range.

Another kilometre and the road turned to dirt. The mountains towered up to one side and the land – mostly coated in scree – fell away at a reasonable gradient at the other, but the road snaked around every curve in a seemingly endless series of blind hairpins. There’d been no rain on the island for almost a year, evident in the potholes and corrugations. Clarissa thought Francois might have slowed, but no, he maintained a steady speed, even over the corrugations. It was enough to make your teeth rattle. The plastic bottle rolled every which way, no one attempting to retrieve it. Perhaps it belonged to a passenger of a previous tour. And on each bend, the nerves in Clarissa’s hip made themselves known in short sharp daggers of pain.

Presumably Francois was keeping to a schedule, but he might have given some thought to his passengers. And the oncoming vehicles. Not that there were many. Whorls of road dust trailing behind an approaching car blended into the already dust-laden air.

Despite the ordeal that was Francois’ driving and the intermittent pain in her hip, she managed to enjoy the coastline slipping in and out of view in the mid-distance, even though the water had lost its usual sapphire sheen and a haze obscured the horizon. In open country, she could see that the dust was growing thicker by the minute. She hoped no one on the bus was asthmatic.

The road seemed to go on forever, the tour party hurled first to one side of the bus and then the other as Francois navigated the bends. Clarissa held onto her seatbelt and braced in anticipation. Every now and then, she glanced across at Richard whose face wore a look of apprehension. Fred and Margaret didn’t turn their heads and Miss Sparrow sat with her head bowed. She appeared to be reading a book. The two matrons in the front seat behind the driver chatted amiably, their gazes turned to each other as though this was a bus trip they made every day. Behind her, she caught the occasional German phrase followed by a guffaw.

As the bus hurtled on, Clarissa succumbed to a disturbing and powerful flash which exited her mind as quickly as it came, and she was left feeling disconcerted. Something was not quite right about this tour but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Whatever it was had nothing to do with her ill temper. It was the sort of flash that, had it occurred before the journey began, might have tipped the scales and seen her forego the tour and head back to her apartment.

To distract herself from her unease, she tried to find a way to describe the landscape to her friends back home. The island was shaped like a lower leg and Morro Jable sat at the heel of the foot, the land of Jandía beginning at the ankle and extending to the toe. Next, she imagined a row of dolls wearing ball gowns or brides in meringues. The mountain tops formed the torsos, and from the waist, the lower half were the full bridal skirts with all of those ripples and curves of fabric cascading all around. The road was located about halfway up the skirt and, far below, the ocean, gunmetal blue beneath the calima sky, met the mountain at a hem of low cliff.

In places there were dwellings, some abandoned, others perhaps inhabited, and off into the deep mountain gorges where the land pleated could be seen signs of a compound of small huts and barns. Clarissa could not fathom why anyone would bother with the land out here. Was it desperation that drove the poor farmers to cultivate every cranny? Or were these locales favoured by the reclusive, those of dubious repute, those with something to hide?

She couldn’t decide.

She did decide there was only one advantage to Francois’ driving: Richard was too apprehensive to speak. Two advantages, if travel time was a consideration.

Eventually, they reached the end of the ranges and traversed a stretch of flatter land. Before long, the island’s toe came into view. Although it wasn’t shaped like a toe as the land fanned out to the north and south, leaving a short stretch of rugged coastline to the west.

They passed a tiny village and headed up a narrow isthmus, Francois pulling up in a car park beside a lighthouse. Faro de Punta Jandía and the structure was impressive, although not that tall. It was more the formal way the stout brown-stone lighthouse had been incorporated into the flat-roofed keeper’s dwelling, the whole making a strong statement on the narrow outcrop of land, just as the surroundings made an equally strong statement, with the jagged coastline, the low cliffs and the ocean pounding the rocks not far below. And then, looking back there were the Jandía ranges they had driven past.

‘Ten minutes,’ Francois announced as he alighted to open the side door.

The party decanted, the two lads wandering off following the cliffs westward, away from the lighthouse. What were they up to? Mr Cool headed back through the car park. Again, a peculiar direction to head. The matrons hung back, and the frail woman didn’t venture far beyond the leeward side of the lighthouse. She seemed in a poor state and Clarissa wondered if the dust was affecting her.

Clarissa felt bolder. Despite the insistent wind, she went over to the edge of the railings and then out onto the gravel concourse, the better to see the rocky ledge below. She had to hold on to the seam of her blouse to stop the easterly from exposing her midriff but she soon forgot she was doing it as her awareness was taken by the setting.

Before long, she sensed someone beside her. It was Richard. He seemed to want to pair up with her. She knew it was only to avoid Fred and Margaret who had disappeared from view but would likely reappear any minute. She introduced herself to the curiously uptight author and they exchanged pleasantries. Then she returned her gaze to the view, this time conscious of her hand gripping the edge of her blouse. She was prepared to endure the man’s company, but she allowed her gaze to drift further away from where he stood, hoping to indicate politely that she was on the tour to observe, not socialise.

He seemed content with the silence and used the opportunity to take some photos.

After standing mesmerised by the ocean pushing against itself as the waters to the island’s east met the waters to the west, she turned back to admire the lighthouse and, beyond, the two coastlines of the isthmus. He turned too. She met his eyes and smiled.

‘Feels like the end of the earth,’ he said.

‘A good setting for a novel, do you think?’

‘Probably.’

He didn’t sound convinced. It was a lacklustre reply to a genuine question, one she thought might have resulted in an interesting exchange. Instead, she stared down a potential rabbit hole. No follow up advised. She decided she’d had enough of getting blasted by the dry and dusty easterly wind that seemed determined to give the island a thorough whipping, and she headed back, pleased when the last of the tour party had bundled into the van and Francois closed the side door.

He then hurried around the front of the bus and jumped in the driver’s seat. When he turned the ignition key, instead of the usual firing up of the engine, the tour party were treated to a protracted whine. Glances met with worried glances. Francois made five attempts before popping the bonnet. There was an anxious wait. When he got back in and tried again, the engine started and they were away. Clarissa glanced at Richard but said nothing.

Francois took them north to the second tip of the island’s toe, traversing about five kilometres of corrugations that sent juddering vibrations through the passengers and caused the plastic bottle to bounce about on the aisle floor. Clarissa wondered where he was taking them until they arrived at another lighthouse and she overheard Fred telling Margaret it was known as Faro de Punta Pesebre. From what she could see, the lighthouse amounted to a door set in a solid concrete frame, mounted on a stone platform. A curious structure, and well worth the bone-jarring trip. This time, Clarissa was first off the bus.

Before anyone could join her, she headed past the curious lighthouse and carried on as far as she dared, the little promontory narrowing the further she went. Then, she turned to view the land behind her, gripping her blouse for the sake of modesty. Despite the dust haze the setting was phenomenal, with the high cliffs of Jandía rising in the middle distance, the low cliffs nearby, the rocks gnarly, volcanic, uncompromising. The ocean, treacherous here, churned, smashing into the basalt shelf, sending spume high into the air. She turned her back on the land and faced that expanse of water, feeling the strong easterly wind as it threatened to push her over the edge and onto the rocks below. Here was a place to lose a life to the elements. It was like being on the prow of a ship in a violent storm. Despite the wind, she would have liked to have lingered, although here was no place for a picnic. She glanced behind her at the bus and saw Francois waving and the others walking back. She joined them, noticing the women already sitting in the bus. She doubted they’d got off.

As she resumed her seat, she caught the gaze of the stubble-bearded man seated behind her, and he quickly looked away without so much as a smile. Rude, then. Probably viewed her as a boring old woman, nondescript and utterly dull with her short grey hair and her wrinkles. She considered herself anything but.

The engine started first time, and they headed back the way they had come, first the five kilometres of corrugations and then the road back to the mountains, taking the turn-off to Cofete after about a dozen hairpins. Francois drove the whole way to the western cliff as though he had a ten-ton lorry on his tail, throwing the minibus into the first few bends of the initial rise and fishtailing out. Even Clarissa felt rising alarm. Richard’s knuckles on the hand that gripped his seat had turned white. One of the lads in the back said, ‘Hey, ho,’ and laughed without humour. It was Fred who did everyone a favour when he insisted Francois slow down.

‘Margaret will have a heart attack if you keep this up,’ he shouted.

There was some laughter from the back, humorous, this time.

‘Vale, vale. I go slow for you.’ Francois lifted his hands off the steering wheel and laughed. The van veered to the left, the direction of the precipitous fall. What was his game?

The larger of the matrons cried out, ‘For pity’s sake, Francois, pack it in!’

There was an air of familiarity in her choice of phrase. Did they know each other?

Francois braked and braked again, causing everyone to lurch forwards. If he wanted to instil terror in his passengers, he was doing a good job, especially in those with window seats overlooking the plummet. For a reason known only to himself, he took things steady from then on. Even so, Richard gripped his seat. Yet Clarissa thought she had more right to feel terrified since she was on the side of the bus facing the sharp fall and had she been Catholic, she’d have crossed herself and sought the lord’s intervention.

As they crested the mountain range, a lookout appeared on the left, and beyond it there was a walk to an even higher peak to the south. There were cars in the small parking area and people standing around, gazing, one or two close to the edge, defying their own ability to remain on their feet with the blustery easterly wind pressing against their backs. It appeared too dangerous even for Clarissa and besides, what was the point of taking in the panorama when this wretched calima grew stronger by the minute, reducing visibility and making even things close up appear hazy.

Francois cornered the next bend and announced, ‘We are now late for the restaurant and cannot stop at the lookout. Sorry. Maybe on the way back.’

He was clearly a man who did not take kindly to being told what to do.

The descent was more confronting than the ascent and anyone without a head for heights would have been absolutely petrified, especially with Francois behind the wheel, there being nothing to avert catastrophe should the minivan veer off the edge of the road, a road that was little more than a wide goat track, a scratch in the mountainside. Despite being flung from side to side as the bus cornered tight bend after tight bend in endless succession, Clarissa managed to ignore her fear and her discomfort and admire the vastness of the landscape, what she could see of it, taking in the coastline below the cliff, and the cliff itself that rose up beside them to between five and seven hundred metres or thereabouts, and stretched on ahead and disappeared into the haze to the north, a cliff of vertiginous falls, the declivity lessening towards the base and levelling somewhat near the long beach of creamy sand. Nowhere could appear more secluded, more remote, more bereft of life in any form. There was just the rock, the sand and the ocean.

Yet this was where some intrepid locals had established the tiny farming village of Cofete, a place with no running water, no electricity and no mainline telephone. On an island where everywhere beyond the main towns was isolated, remote, and in varying degrees inaccessible, locating a farm or even a village at the bottom of a cliff on the windward side of the island seemed relatively understandable. They were locals, after all. But this was also where in the 1930s, General Gustav Winter of the German military chose to build a farmhouse. Why, in heaven’s name, did he decide to build a house here? It was a question that bounced around inside Clarissa’s mind as the minibus traversed the sloping plain to the village.