“Oh, I’ve heard of her,” said Parker. “She’s supposed to know everything about this place.”
Hannah frowned. Since his investigation had run out of steam, the thought had occurred to him more than once that Missy Coltrane might know more than she had let on about who had fired those shots on Tuesday evening. Still, her suggestion about the entourages of the two candidates had been shrewd. He had seen them both, and his policeman’s instinct had told him he thought very little of them. If only they had a motive.
The short-haul island-hopper from Nassau landed just after four. The pilot had a package from the Metro-Dade Police Department for a Mr. Favaro. The Miami detective identified himself and took the package. Parker, his sample bottle containing the vital bullet in his jacket pocket, boarded.
“There’ll be a car for you at Heathrow tomorrow morning,” said Hannah. “Straight to Lambeth. I want that bullet in the hands of Alan Mitchell as fast as possible.”
On the ground, after the plane took off, Favaro showed the photos of Francisco Mendes, alias the Scorpion, to Hannah. The British detective studied them. There were ten in all, showing a lean, saturnine man with slicked-back black hair and a thin, expressionless mouth. The eyes, looking into the camera, were blank.
“Nasty-looking bastard,” agreed Hannah. “Let’s get them up to Chief Inspector Jones.”
The head of the Barclayan Police was in his office on Parliament Square. The sound of carols came from the open doors of the Anglican church, and laughter came from the open bar of the Quarter Deck. The press was back.
Jones shook his head. “No, never seen him, man. Not in these islands.”
“I don’t think Julio would mistake his man,” said Favaro. “We sat opposite him for four days.”
Hannah was inclined to agree. Maybe he had been looking in the wrong place, inside Government House. Perhaps the killing had been a contract job. But why ...?
“Would you circulate these, Mr. Jones? Show them around. He was supposed to have been seen in the bar of the Quarter Deck last Thursday week. Maybe somebody else saw him. The barman, any other customers that night. Anyone who saw where he went when he left, anyone who saw him in any other bar—you know the score.”
Inspector Jones nodded. He knew his patch. He would show the picture around.
At sundown, Hannah checked his watch. Parker would have arrived at Nassau an hour ago. He would be boarding the overnight plane to London about now. Eight hours’ flying, add five hours for time zones, and he would touch down just after seven A.M. London time.
Alan Mitchell, the brilliant civilian scientist who headed the Home Office ballistics lab at Lambeth, had agreed to give up his Sunday to work on the bullet. He would subject it to every known test and phone Hannah by Sunday afternoon with his findings. Then Hannah would know exactly what weapon he was looking for. That would narrow the odds. Someone must have seen the weapon that was used. This was such a small community.
Hannah was interrupted over his supper by a call from Nassau.
“I’m afraid the plane’s an hour delayed on takeoff,” said Parker. “We’re off in ten minutes. Thought you might like to alert London.”
Hannah checked his watch. Half-past seven. He swore, put the phone down, and went back to his grilled grouper. It was cold.
He was taking his nightcap in the bar at ten when the bar phone rang.
“I’m awfully sorry about this,” said Parker.
“Where the hell are you?” roared Hannah.
“In Nassau, Chief. You see, we took off at half-past seven, flew for forty-five minutes over the sea, developed a slight engine fault, and turned back. The engineers are working on it now. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Give me a call just before you take off,” said Hannah. “I’ll tell London of the new arrival time.”
He was awakened at three in the morning.
“The engineers have fixed the fault,” said Parker. “It was a warning light solenoid cut-out on the port outer engine.”
“Parker,” said Hannah slowly and carefully, “I don’t care if it was the Chief Purser pissing in the fuel tank. Is it fixed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you’re taking off?”
“Well, not exactly. You see, by the time we make London, the crew will have exceeded their permitted hours without a rest. So they can’t fly.”
“Well, what about the slip crew? The ones who brought that plane in yesterday afternoon, twelve hours ago. They must have rested.”
“Yes, well, they’ve been found, Chief. Only they thought they had a thirty-six-hour stopover. The First Officer went to a friend’s stag night. He can’t fly, either.”
Hannah made a remark about the world’s favorite airline to which the chairman, Lord King, would have taken considerable exception, had he heard it.
“So what happens now?” he asked.
“We have to wait until the crew has rested. Then we fly,” said the voice from Nassau.
Hannah rose and went out. There were no taxis, no Oscar. He walked all the way to Government House, raised Jefferson, and was let in. In the humid night he was soaked in sweat. He put through a long-distance call to Scotland Yard and got Mitchell’s private number. He called that number to warn the scientists, but the man had left his home for Lambeth five minutes earlier. It was four A.M. in Sunshine, nine A.M. in London. He waited an hour until he could reach Mitchell at the laboratory to tell him Parker would not be there until early evening. Alan Mitchell was not pleased when he heard it. He had to drive all the way back to West Mailing in Kent through a bitter December day.
Parker called again at midday on Sunday. Hannah was killing time in the bar at the Quarter Deck.
“Yes?” he said wearily.
“It’s okay, Chief. The crew is rested. They’re able to fly.”
“Great,” said Hannah. He checked his watch.
Eight hours’ flying, add five for time zones—if Alan Mitchell would agree to work through the night, Hannah could have his answer in Sunshine by breakfast hour on Monday.
“So you’re taking off now?” he asked.
“Well, not exactly,” said Parker. “You see, if we did, we’d land after one A.M. at Heathrow. That’s not allowed. Noise abatement, I’m afraid.”
“So what the hell are you going to do?”
“Well, the usual takeoff time is just after six this afternoon here, landing just after seven A.M. at Heathrow. So they’re going to revert to that timing.”
“But that’ll mean two jumbos taking off together,” said Hannah.
“Yes, it does, Chief. But don’t worry. Both will be full, so the airline won’t take a loss.”
“Thank God for that!” snapped Hannah, and put the phone down. Twenty-four hours, he thought, twenty-four bleeding hours. There are three things in this life about which one can do nothing: death, taxes, and airlines.
Then he spotted Dillon walking up the steps to the hotel with two fit-looking young men. Probably his taste, thought Hannah savagely, bloody Foreign Office. He was not in a good mood.
Across the square, a flock of Mr. Quince’s parishioners—the men in neat dark suits, the women brightly caparisoned like birds of brilliant plumage—were streaming out of the church at the end of morning service, prayer books in white-gloved hands, wax fruit bobbing and nodding on straw hats. It was an (almost) normal Sunday morning on Sunshine Island.
In the home counties of England, things were not quite so peaceful. At Chequers, the country residence of the Prime Ministers of Great Britain, set amid twelve hundred rolling acres of Buckinghamshire, Mrs. Thatcher had been up early as usual and had plowed through four red dispatch boxes of state papers before joining Denis Thatcher for breakfast before a cheery log fire.
As she finished, there was a tap on the door, and her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, entered. He held the Sunday Express in his hand.
“Something I thought you might like to see, Prime Minister.”
“So who’s having a
go at me now?” inquired the PM brightly.
“No,” said the beetle-browed Yorkshireman. “It’s about the Caribbean.”
She read the large centerfold spread, and her brow furrowed. The pictures were there: of Marcus Johnson on the hustings in Port Plaisance, and again, a few years earlier, seen through a gap in a pair of curtains. There were photos of his eight bodyguards, all taken around Parliament Square on Friday, and matching pictures taken from Kingston Police files. Lengthy statements from “senior DEA sources in the Caribbean” and from Commissioner Foster of the Kingston Police occupied much of the accompanying text.
“But this is dreadful!” said the Prime Minister. “I must speak to Douglas.”
She went straight to her private office and rang Douglas.
Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Douglas Hurd, was with his family at his official country residence—another mansion, called Chevening, set in the county of Kent. He had perused the Sunday Times, Observer, and Sunday Telegraph, but he had not yet reached the Sunday Express.
“No, Margaret, I haven’t seen it yet,” he said. “But I have it within arm’s reach.”
“I’ll hold on,” said the PM.
The Foreign Secretary, a former novelist of some note, knew a good newspaper story when he saw one. This one seemed to be extremely well sourced.
“Yes, I agree. It’s disgraceful, if it’s true. ... Yes, yes, Margaret, I’ll get onto it in the morning and have the Caribbean desk check it out.”
But civil servants are human beings too—a sentiment not often echoed by the general public—and they have wives, children, and homes. With six days to go to Christmas, Parliament was in recess and even the ministries were thinly staffed. Still, there had to be someone on duty the next morning, Monday, and the matter of a new Governor could be addressed then.
Mrs. Thatcher and her family went to Sunday-morning service at Ellesborough and returned just after twelve. At one they sat down for lunch with a few friends. These included Bernard Ingham.
It was her political adviser Charles Powell who caught the BSB program Countdown at twelve o’clock. He liked Countdown. It carried some good foreign news now and again, and as an ex-diplomat that was his specialty. When he saw the program’s headlines and a reference to a later report on a scandal in the Caribbean, he pressed the “record” button on the VCR machine beneath the TV.
At two, Mrs. Thatcher was up again—she never saw much point in spending a long time over food; it wasted part of a busy day—and as she left the dining room a hovering Charles Powell intercepted her. In her study he put the tape into her VCR and ran it. She watched in silence. Then she rang Chevening again.
Mr. Hurd, a devoted family man, had taken his small son and daughter for a brisk walk across the fields. He had just returned, hungry for his roast beef, when Mrs. Thatcher’s second call came through.
“No, I missed that too, Margaret,” he said.
“I have a tape,” said the Prime Minister. “It is quite appalling. I’ll send it straight to you. Please screen it when it arrives and call me back.”
A dispatch rider roared through the gloom of a dismal December afternoon, skirted London via the M25 motorway, and was at Chevening by half-past four.
The Foreign Secretary called Chequers at five-fifteen and was put straight through. “I agree, Margaret, quite appalling,” said Douglas Hurd.
“I suggest we need a new Governor out there,” said the PM, “not in the new year, but now. We must show we are active, Douglas. You know who else will have seen these stories?”
The Foreign Secretary was well aware that Her Majesty was with her family at Sandringham but not cut off from world events. She was an avid newspaper reader, and she watched current affairs issues on television.
“I’ll get on to it immediately,” he said.
He did. The Permanent Under-Secretary was jerked out of his armchair in Sussex and began phoning around. At eight that evening the choice had fallen on Sir Crispian Rattray, a retired diplomat and former High Commissioner in Barbados, who was willing to go.
He agreed to report to the Foreign Office in the morning for formal appointment and a thorough briefing. He would fly on the late-morning plane from Heathrow, landing at Nassau on Monday afternoon. He would consult further with the High Commission there, spend the night, and arrive on Sunshine by chartered airplane on Tuesday morning to take the reins in hand.
“It shouldn’t take long, my dear,” he told Lady Rattray as he packed. “Mucks up the pheasant shooting, but there we are. Seems I’ll have to withdraw the candidacy of these two rascals and see the elections through with two new candidates. Then they’ll grant independence, I’ll hoist the old flag down, London will send in a High Commissioner, the islanders will run their own affairs, and I can come home. Month or two, shouldn’t doubt. Pity about the pheasants.”
* * *
At nine o’clock on Sunday morning on Sunshine, McCready found Hannah having breakfast on the terrace at the hotel.
“Would you mind awfully if I used the new phone at Government House to call London?” he asked. “I ought to talk to my people about going back home.”
“Be my guest,” said Hannah. He looked tired and unshaved, as someone who had been up half the night.
At half-past nine, island time, McCready put his call through to Denis Gaunt. What his deputy told him about the Sunday Express and the Countdown program confirmed to McCready that what he had hoped would happen had indeed happened.
Since the small hours of the morning, a variety of news editors in London had been trying to call their correspondents in Port Plaisance with news of what the Sunday Express was carrying in its centerfold page spread and to ask for an urgent follow-up story. After lunch, London time, the calls redoubled—they had seen the Countdown story as well. None of the calls had come through.
McCready had briefed the switchboard operator at the Quarter Deck that all the gentlemen of the press were extremely tired and were not to be disturbed under any circumstances. He had himself been elected to take all their calls for them, and he would pass them on. A hundred-dollar bill had sealed the compact. The switchboard operator duly told every London caller that his party was “out” but that the message would reach him immediately. The messages were duly passed to McCready, who duly ignored them. The moment for further press coverage had not yet come.
At eleven A.M. he was at the airport to greet two young SAS sergeants flying in from Miami. They had been lecturing for the benefit of their colleagues in the American Green. Berets at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when alerted to take three days’ furlough and report to their host on the island of Sunshine. They had flown south to Miami and chartered an air taxi to Port Plaisance.
Their baggage was meager, but it included one hold-all containing their toys, wrapped in beach towels. The CIA had been kind enough to ensure that bag cleared customs at Miami, and McCready, waving his Foreign Office letter, claimed diplomatic immunity for it at Port Plaisance.
The Deceiver brought them back to the hotel and installed them in a room next to his own. They stashed their bag of “goodies” under the bed, locked the door, and went for a long swim. McCready had already told them when he would need them—at ten the next morning at Government House.
Having lunched on the terrace, McCready went to see the Reverend Walter Drake. He found the Baptist minister at his small house, resting his still bruised body. He introduced himself and asked how the pastor was feeling.
“Are you with Mr. Hannah?” asked Drake.
“Not exactly with him,” said McCready. “More ... keeping an eye on things while he gets on with his murder investigation. My concern is more the political side of things.”
“You with the Foreign Office?” persisted Drake.
“In a way,” said McCready. “Why do you ask?”
“I do not like your Foreign Office,” said Drake. “You are selling my people down the river.”
“Ah, n
ow that might just be about to change,” said McCready, and told the preacher what he wished of him.
Reverend Drake shook his head. “I am a man of God,” he said. “You want different people for that sort of thing.”
“Mr. Drake, yesterday I called Washington. Someone there told me that only seven Barclayans had ever served in the United States armed forces. One of them was listed as Drake W.”
“Another man,” growled Reverend Drake.
“This man said,” pursued McCready quietly, “that the Drake W. they had listed had been a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Served two tours in Vietnam. Came back with a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. I wonder what happened to him?”
The big pastor lumbered to his feet, crossed the room, and stared out at the clapboard houses up and down the street where he lived.
“Another man,” he growled, “another time, another place. I do only God’s work now.”
“Don’t you think what I ask of you might qualify?”
The big man considered, then nodded. “Possibly.”
“I think so, too,” said McCready. “I hope I’ll see you there. I need all the help I can get. Ten o’clock, tomorrow morning, Government House.”
He left and strolled down through the town to the harbor. Jimmy Dobbs was working on the Gulf Lady. McCready spent thirty minutes with him, and they agreed on a charter voyage for the following day.
He was hot and sticky when he arrived at Government House just before five that afternoon. Jefferson served him an iced tea while he waited for Lieutenant Jeremy Haverstock to return. The young officer had been playing tennis with some other expatriates at a villa in the hills.
McCready’s question to him was simple: “Will you be here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”
Haverstock thought it over. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said.
“Good,” said McCready. “Do you have your full tropical dress uniform with you?”
“Yes,” said the cavalryman. “Only got to wear it once. A state ball in Nassau six months ago.”
“Excellent,” said McCready. “Ask Jefferson to press it and polish up the leather and brasses.”