Operation Nassau (6 page)

I have, of course. There is a great deal of money in golf. But one needs money, or backing, to start with. I said, ‘Some day, perhaps. My father has multiple allergic sensitivity, and it will be difficult to leave Nassau until he improves.’

He had an extremely deep suntan, in which his eyes were quite pale, but the eyeballs unveined and apparently healthy. It was hard to guess his profession. ‘You miss your home, Dr MacRannoch?’ he said.

Across the lounge I had just spotted the back of Johnson’s head. The question reminded me of my anger. ‘Unfortunately,’ I said, ‘I have little chance to do so. My father is head of a Scottish clan , Mr Brady, and is prone to bring his surroundings with him, wherever he goes.’

‘His drapes, you mean?’ He looked slightly bewildered.

‘His clansmen, I mean,’ I said, no doubt with some grimness. ‘Didn’t you see the register at the clubhouse? T. K. MacRannoch.’

‘You don’t say?’ He looked duly astonished. Then he said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t bawl out the old man too quickly. There are an awful lot of Scots in the Bahamas.’

There may be, but they are not all MacRannochs. The word gets round. Even among the unwanted, like T. K. MacRannoch, the word travels like typhoid. I said, ‘I knew it. Father is planning a MacRannoch clan gathering.’

‘Here?’

I wasn’t thinking of Brady. I was thinking of James Ulric’s bronchial spasms.

‘Here, or at the Begum’s house,’ I said, on reflection.

‘But,’ he said, ‘I thought the Begum spent the winter at your castle in Scotland?’

I stared at Wallace Brady with surprise, and then with increasing suspicion.

I hadn’t told him that. I had no desire to talk about the Begum, who is the decayed English widow of an extremely rich Indian prince, and who annually rents Castle Rannoch as a shooting-lodge from James Ulric MacRannoch.

While he disports himself in the sunshine, the Begum Akbar from the time of my senior schooldays has moved into the castle with her clothes, her butler and maid, and using our gillies, our cook and our house staff has killed deer and fished salmon and shot our grouse with her friends.

I had never met her. I would never go home when she was there, and I had avoided her house here on Crab Island by Nassau. It was she who had found our present villa and rented it in advance for my father. It was because of the Begum, I was sure, that James Ulric had come to Nassau at all. They were welcome. I do not care for life on the edge of a Barclaycard.

But I had said nothing of all that to Brady. I said, ‘How do you know that? You knew about Father before I mentioned him to you?” And. as an unlikely thought struck me. ‘Mr Brady. What do you do for a living? On Great Harbour Cay?’

To do him credit, he looked me in the eye as he answered. ‘My firm has a project there,’ he said. ‘A big constructional project. I’m a civil engineer, Dr MacRannoch.’

There was a deadly and sundering silence, fully understood by both contributing parties.

‘You build bridges,’ I said. I opened my handbag, selected my car keys, snapped it shut and stood up. ‘I’m sorry I can’t introduce you to my father .’ I said. ‘He has built five bridges, Mr Brady. And those were five bridges too many. Thank you for the golf and the coffee. Good-bye.’

He didn’t say anything, but half-way to the door a thought struck me, and I went back to give him the benefit of it. ‘You might go back to the golf-course and try Mr T. K. MacRannoch,’ I suggested.

The hospital was busy when I drove in under the blue arch: there had been a triple crash in Bay Street and a British frigate had called on her way south for combined exercises; which meant sixty pints for the blood bank and a long, robust queue of A.B.s calling four-letter words to the nurses while poor Currie, the lab technician, sat inside draining them off in batches of four.

It was needful to keep our blood stock replenished. But I sometimes wondered if the naval platelets storming through the Bahamian vascular system were not the source of the strange tribal love-rock appeal of New Providence Island.

However, it was cool as yet, which cuts down the casualties; and too early for the rum and meths drinkers, so we got through the work unimpeded, and by mid-afternoon I was able to look in on Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe, about whom I had already taken advice. Although there was no cause for anxiety, renal function after the second attack had undoubtedly been more seriously impaired than the previous day, and was not responding to treatment as well as it should. Dialysis was indicated, and after this had been settled, I walked through the private wing to inform Sir Bartholomew.

The United Commonwealth is an informal hospital: peanut-sellers and newsvendors have free access to the front door, and it is the habit of the staff to take matters at comfortable speed and with many sociable exchanges in the passages. While white patients and even white doctors require to be reassured about this, there is no doubt that the Bahamian cases thrive in such an atmosphere. I was surprised therefore amid the hum of conversation and laughter coming from the short private wing to distinguish the complaint of a woman, coming from Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe’s room. I walked in briskly, closed the door, and folded back the short screen.

It was Denise, Lady Edgecombe, seated on a chair with her head on her husband’s sheeted lap, snivelling. I can use no other word.

I have no patience with this sort of thing. I said, ‘Well, this is hardly the way to cheer up your husband. Lady Edgecombe,’ and she sat up looking tearful and sulky, and attempted patently to recover her lost dignity. My patient, throwing me a wretched look, patted the woman’s hand and said, ‘She’s just upset. We both thought I’d be out of here by now, you see. It’s our wedding anniversary.’

I have never been able to fathom why the elapse of the arbitrary number of 365 days or its multiple from any significant event should be a matter for either celebration or mourning. I have known a Trendelenburg sink into a condition of acute post-operative shock because she had forgotten to mark the dog’s birthday. It is as well that in this world we are not all alike.

I said , ‘It’s a pity, but perhaps she’ll enjoy a day or two in Miami instead. I’m sending you over to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in the morning, Sir Bartholomew. Their equipment is just a little more sophisticated than ours, and the right treatment now could cut your recovery time by quite a few days. I imagine you know Miami well?’

That had roused Lady Edgecombe. She sat erect of a sudden, her blonde hair stuck to her cheeks and her mascara running, and said in an excited voice, ‘What’s wrong with him? What will they do to him there?’

One has to simplify. I explained that they would clear the remains of what he had eaten out of his system and enlarged on this until she was satisfied: I had no time to deal with hysteria. No sooner had I done this, however, than she felt able to turn to her first complaint: addressing her husband in a shaken voice, she observed that it would be the first anniversary since their wedding they had not spent together.

Over her head, I met Sir Bartholomew’s eye. I knew, without being told, that it would do no good to suggest that she might, with the greatest of ease, draw up a chair and spend the whole evening in the hospital with her husband if she so wished. It was the celebration she had been counting on, not Bartholomew Edgecombe’s company.

He knew it, too. He squeezed her hand and said , ‘Denise. Wallace Brady would take you out like a shot. Why not phone him?’

‘I’m tired of Wallace,’ she said. I could imagine it. Wallace Brady was interested in bridges, not in cafe society.

‘Well, Johnson, then?’ he said. ‘He squired you about all day yesterday. Charm him into painting your picture for nothing.’

She gave a watery smile, and I gave her husband top marks for diplomacy. I said, ‘Would you like to use the hospital telephone. Lady Edgecombe? I think you could get Mr Johnson at Coral Harbour.’ I added, civilly, ‘He would give you a splendid evening out. I am sure.’

‘I don’t much like yachts,’ said Denise; but she was clearly thinking.

‘Cafe Martinique? Junkanoo Club? Charley Charley’s? Tell him I’ll spring the cash,’ said Edgecombe, smiling. He had had, I judged, just about enough, and I wished the woman would make up her mind before I had to do it for her. He added, ‘Or the Bamboo Conch,Denise. The nurse said they’re putting on a special show there for Krishtof Bey.’

I should think Lady Edgecombe and I stiffened at the identical moment. Her nylon lashes fell wide apart and she exclaimed, ‘Not Krishtof Bey? Bart, is he going to be there?’ but I was quite silent because I was using my brain.

I said, ‘You should meet him, Lady Edgecombe. He was on the plane yesterday morning, but perhaps Sir Bartholomew doesn’t remember? The young Turk who helped out the steward?’

His lips parted, and a little colour came into his face. He had been, and was still, a man of striking appearance, and until lately, I judged, in perfect condition. I understood why Denise had married him, and thought too that he probably had all the qualifications for a secret agent in this part of the world: socially acceptable, noncompetitive and a handy man, I supposed, in a fight.

He said, ‘Was he the ballet dancer? I didn’t even look at him properly. It was damned embarrassing as it was.’ He grinned at me over his wife’s head. ‘A first-hand unique encounter with one of the world’s greatest dancers, and I can’t even describe it in company.’

‘How kind you are, Doctor,’ said Lady Edgecombe. ‘Did you say there was a telephone?’

I had her husband medicated and settled for the night by the time she came back: her walk down the corridor was slow, and at first I assumed that Johnson had turned her down flat.

But it wasn’t that at all. She came in, leaving the door open, and said to me, ‘He would like you to go with us.’

I make it a matter of practice to show no surprise. In any case, I could think of one or two possible reasons why Johnson Johnson might want my presence at a night-club attended by both Bart Edgecombe’s wife and one of our suspects, although Denise clearly could think of none. I said, ‘Well, I’m free, as it happens. But I am sure you would prefer a
tête-à-tête
?’

‘No. I expect he’s right,’ said Denise, and, bending, ranged her husband’s two slippers firmly under the bed with brittle efficiency. She straightened. ‘In these colonies people do talk.’

I took her with me out of the room.

I went back once, to check on Edgecombe before I left. He was alone this time and not yet asleep. He looked up vaguely and smiled.

‘I hope you don’t find it too dreary. Johnson tells me you know what we’re up to.’

‘Yes.’

He said, ‘I’ve got one worry. They might try to get at me through Denise.’

‘I expect Mr Johnson is thinking of that ,’ I said. ‘We’ll take good care of her.’

‘She used to be in the theatre,’ he said. ‘She’d set her heart on ballet, and once she wants to do something, she’s really determined, you know. She would have done very well. But when she grew too tall, there was only show business. She missed the stage when we were young. And now, of course, she rather misses the Embassy life.’

‘You didn’t have any family?’ I said.

He was far too sophisticated to show any emotion. He said , ‘Denise wasn’t too keen. And in my kind of job it isn’t wise. Look at the worry we might be having now if we had youngsters to think of as well.’

Look at the worry you are having now with Denise instead. I nearly remarked. But I didn’t. Recommending children as one form of therapy can be a dangerous business.

The Bamboo Conch Club is contained in the basement of a large Nassau hotel called the Ascot. I met Lady Edgecombe and Johnson there in the foyer, and he led us into the hotel Hibiscus Room restaurant, where the three of us were first to have dinner.

Lady Edgecombe was gracious, and in the faintest degree nervous of Johnson. I wore a navy blue tailored silk dress I had bought five years before for a wedding. Denise, her hair perfectly set, had put on a knitted silver dress which bared the fatty pads at the tops of her arms.

On the other hand, Johnson looked to my mind perfectly harmless. The terry shirt he had naturally changed; his black hair was brushed down and glossy, and his burnished bifocals glimmered in the fashionable dark of the foyer: he wore a wide shot-silk tie in crimson and a pale shantung jacket a shade too large for his shoulders.

He was quick to notice my glance, ushering us into the floral delights of the Hibiscus Room. ‘It’s a double-blind controlled trial for Hung on You,’ he said. ‘My underprivileged wardrobe has got itself burgled, and Lady Edgecombe has lent me the wherewithal to be a turned-on type for the evening. Denise, what will you do if my trousers fall down?’

Denise smiled, with dignity. ‘Time your reflexes.’ I said. Someone had to say something.

It was one of those dining-rooms with hibiscus blossoms lying all over the table and a bottle-top dance floor. Upon this, obese tourists of both sexes in pants suits revolved to the tunes of their courtship, watched with distaste by their offspring, attired in bow ties and a flourish of bacterial acne.

I do not dance. Johnson, maintaining gay conversation of determined vacuity, managed to withstand until after the clam chowder the wistful gleam in Lady Edgecombe’s fringed eyes. After that, with an apology to me, he stood up and asked her to dance.

He had picked an unfortunate moment. The small coloured orchestra, which up till then had contented itself with foxtrots, waltzes and cha-cha-chas of genteel moderation, suddenly broke with relief, for all I know, into a request number for jiving.

Or it may have been rock-’n’-roll. At any rate, the rhythm became syncopated and ragged, the percussion appeared suddenly to have a major epileptic convulsion, and the elderly matrons melted away, to be replaced with three or four younger couples, and some who were obviously not couples at all. in the traditional marital sense. These Johnson and Lady Edgecombe found themselves joining. They halted.

‘Who’s got your bet?’ said the voice of Wallace Brady unexpectedly from just above me. ‘I think I’d back Denise to pull him through, but it’s going to be a near thing.’