Escape from Shadow Island (10 page)

“Doing what?”

“I don't know. They come into Rio Verde sometimes. Go to shops, to bar.”

“Your father's death…,” Max said. “It was an accident?”

“That what police say. What else could it be?”

Max didn't reply. He was watching the figure on the battlements. More than ever now, it looked like
a soldier on guard duty. The island seemed a strange place. A guard on the fortress, a boat patrolling the sea around it to keep people away…Max knew rich people liked to protect their privacy, but ramming boats that came too near seemed a bit extreme.

“Thanks for your help,” he said.

“That all you want to know?”

“Yes.”

Isabella turned to look at him. Her dark eyes were serious, her forehead wrinkling as if she were puzzled. “Why you ask me if my father's death was accident?”

“I have the feeling nothing is what it seems here,” Max said.

 

It was late afternoon when Max returned to the Hotel San Rafael. He went upstairs to his room and splashed cold water on his face to cool himself down. Then he went next door to Consuela's room. She must still be having her siesta.

Max knocked on the door. He heard footsteps inside the room. The handle turned and the door swung open.

A woman peered out at him. But it wasn't Consuela.

She was older, a plump woman in her forties or fifties, with fat legs showing beneath her dress and
grayish hair that had the texture of wire wool.
“¿Sí?”
she said.

Max stared at her. He'd never seen her before in his life. Maybe he'd somehow got the wrong room. But no, there was the number on the door. Max was in room four, Consuela in room five. So who was this woman? A cleaner, perhaps? Or another member of the hotel staff? That must be it. She was a hotel employee sent up to Consuela's room for some reason.

“Is Consuela here?” he asked.

“¿Qué?”

“Señorita Navarra.”

“Who?” the woman said, speaking English now.

“Consuela Navarra. This is her room,” Max said.

The woman shook her head. “No, this is my room.”

Max craned his neck to see over the woman's shoulder. There was a single bed in the room, a bedside cabinet, and an old wooden wardrobe. But no Consuela.

“When did you arrive?” he asked.

“Arrive?” the woman repeated. “Today. This afternoon.”

“Okay. I'm sorry to bother you.”

Max walked away, frowning. Consuela must have moved rooms while he was out. It was odd that she hadn't left a note to let him know. He went downstairs
to the foyer. There was a young woman Max hadn't seen before behind the reception desk. He asked her which room Consuela was in. She checked the register and gave Max a blank look.

“What was the name again?”

“Consuela Navarra,” Max said.

“I'm sorry, but there is no Consuela Navarra staying in the hotel.”

“There must be. Could you check again, please?”

The receptionist inspected the register once more. “Navarra?” she said.

“That's right.”

“No. No Navarra.”

“That's impossible,” said Max. “She was in room five.”

“Room five is occupied by a Señora Córdoba.”

“But she's only just arrived. Before that it was Consuela's room. She checked in with me yesterday evening.”

“Room five was not occupied last night.”

“Of course it was. There must be a mistake in the register. We arrived together. What room is she in now?”

“I already tell you, señor,” the receptionist said. “There is no Señorita Navarra in this hotel.”

Max stared at her. What was going on? Was it a simple mix-up, a language problem? Did this woman not understand what he was saying?

“Can I see the register?” he asked.

The receptionist shrugged and turned the book round. Max studied the list of entries. There was his name—Max Cassidy—with his passport number, nationality, and room number next to it. But there was no mention of Consuela. The woman had been correct. According to the register, room five had been unoccupied the previous night.

Max felt a sudden flutter of anxiety in his stomach. Something wasn't right here. Why wasn't Consuela in the register? There had to be an explanation. Maybe someone had simply forgotten to write her name in the book. But that didn't make sense either. Max had
seen
her name being recorded when they arrived. He'd been standing next to Consuela when she'd handed her passport to the receptionist; he'd watched the woman write her name, and then his, in the book.

“Could I speak to the manager, please?” demanded Max.

“The manager?”

“Yes. Now.”

The receptionist shrugged again and went through a door into an office at the back of the foyer. Max saw
her talking to a man seated behind a desk. The man glanced sideways at Max through the door, then came out to the reception desk.

“You have a problem?” he said bluntly. He was a short, shifty-looking man with small eyes.

“Yes, I have a problem,” Max replied. “I arrived yesterday evening with a woman—Consuela Navarra. She spent last night in room five, but she's not there now. Another woman is in the room, and your receptionist tells me you have no record of Consuela ever being here.”

The manager pulled the register across the desk and examined it closely. “You are Señor Cassidy, no?”

“Yes.”

“You must be mistaken, Señor Cassidy. We have no Señorita Navarra staying here.”

“But that's ridiculous,” Max said. “She was here last night. Ask your receptionist who was on duty yesterday. She had breakfast with me in the dining room this morning. Check with your waiters.”

“I repeat, señor, there is no Señorita Navarra in the hotel. Maybe you imagined her.”

“‘Imagined her'?” Max snapped. “What are you talking about? She's here. I know she is. I want to check all the rooms.”

“That is not possible, señor.”

Imagined her?
What kind of stupid remark was that? What were these people doing? What had happened to Consuela? Had she been kidnapped? Or was she still somewhere in the hotel? Max was going to find out.

He spun on his heel and dashed up the stairs to the second floor. Behind him, the manager called out for him to stop, but Max took no notice. He tried the first door he came to. It was locked. The second door wasn't. Max threw it open and looked around. The room was empty. He moved on down the corridor, checking all the unlocked rooms. When he walked into room five, Señora Córdoba was lying on her bed reading a book.

“Excuse me,” Max said. He glanced around, then pulled open the wardrobe doors.

“Hey, what you do?” Señora Córdoba protested.

Max riffled through the clothes hanging in the wardrobe. None of them were Consuela's. They were too drab, too dowdy. The shoes on the floor of the wardrobe weren't hers either. They were square and clumpy like hiking boots. Consuela wouldn't have been seen dead in them.

Señora Córdoba was on her feet now, shouting at Max in Spanish. He ignored her and pulled out the drawers of the bedside cabinet. They were all empty. There was nowhere else to search, so Max headed for
the door. As he stepped into the corridor, the manager, accompanied by another man, grabbed hold of him. The second man was big and powerful. From the pungent aroma of fish and garlic that came off him, Max guessed he worked in the hotel kitchen.

“It's the police for you,” the manager snapped furiously.

“Where's Consuela?” Max yelled. “What have you done with her?”

He struggled to escape, but the men were too strong for him. They picked him up and carried him downstairs.

THE HEAVY STEEL DOOR SLAMMED SHUT AND a key turned in the lock. Max looked around the tiny police cell. It was only about six feet square, with green mold on the walls and a bare earth floor. There was a low wooden platform at one side for prisoners to sleep on and a barred window high up the rear wall. The room smelled of damp and something sour like sweat or vomit. A cockroach scurried out from beneath the bed and away through a crack in the wall. Max shuddered. He'd never been anywhere so vile before.

He went to the back wall and stood underneath the window. Bending his knees, he leaped upward, grabbing hold of the bars over the window, then pulling
himself up. The view wasn't worth the effort. There was nothing to see except a narrow alley and a brick wall.

Max dropped back down and paced across the floor like the caged animal he was. Anger was still simmering inside him. How dare they do this! How dare they arrest him and throw him in this stinking cell when he'd done nothing wrong!
Nothing wrong?
He almost laughed. What did right or wrong count for in Santo Domingo? His mother had done nothing wrong, and look what they'd done to her.

But underneath his anger he was worried. What had happened to Consuela? Where had she gone, and why was the hotel pretending that she'd never been there? And just as worrying, what was going to happen to him now? He was locked up in a filthy cell five thousand miles from home in a country where he had no friends, didn't know his rights, and couldn't speak the language. He dwelled on these questions for an hour or more before he heard a key in the lock and the cell door swung open. A police officer in a crumpled uniform beckoned him out. Max followed the man along a corridor and up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the police station. The officer knocked on a door and, when a deep voice from within called out,
“Come,” ushered Max inside.

“The prisoner, Colonel,” the police officer said in Spanish, then bowed and left.

There was a man sitting at a desk on the far side of the room. He wore a smart green uniform with medal ribbons on the breast and a lot of gold braid at the shoulders and cuffs. “Come here,” he ordered in English.

Max walked across the office. It was a huge room, thirty feet long, with French windows that opened onto a balcony at one side and a polished wooden floor that creaked as Max crossed it. His legs were shaking. He didn't know who this man was, but his voice alone was enough to terrify him.

“Stop there.” The man lifted his head from some papers he was studying and fixed Max with a penetrating stare. He was big, with a broad chest and muscular arms that bulged beneath the sleeves of his uniform. He had cropped black hair, dark stubble along his jawline, and a long ugly scar on his left cheek that looked like a knife wound. But it was his eyes Max noticed most. This man had the darkest, most frightening eyes Max had ever seen.

“My name is Colonel Pablo de los Mantequillas,” he said. “I am the chief of police for Rio Verde.”

Max swallowed but didn't say anything. Colonel Mantequillas didn't look like a man who engaged in
idle small talk. He asked questions, and you answered those questions. Or else.

“I understand you have been causing trouble at the Hotel San Rafael,” the police chief said. “We don't like foreign tourists who come here and make trouble.”

“I wasn't making trouble,” Max said.

“Be quiet!” Colonel Mantequillas's voice was like a whip crack. “You speak when I tell you and not before. You are not in England now. We do things differently in Santo Domingo, and you'd better not forget that. You were making trouble. Upsetting the guests and disrupting the efficient running of the hotel. Those are serious offenses.”

Serious offenses?
Max thought.
Upsetting a hotel guest? What kind of a country is this?
He was tempted to argue but thought better of it.

“What is this absurd story you told the hotel manager?” the police chief went on. “Something about a woman named”—he glanced at the papers on his desk—“Consuela Navarra. Explain yourself.”

“It's not a ‘story,'” Max said, his voice cracking with nerves.

“No?”

“I came to Santo Domingo with her. And then this afternoon—”

“Yes, I know what happened this afternoon,” the
police chief interrupted. “There is not a shred of truth in what you say. There is no such woman as Consuela Navarra.”

“But there is,” Max said. “She traveled from England with me. I live with her in London. She was in the room next to me at the hotel. Ask the staff.”

“We have. My men have made inquiries at the San Rafael. All the employees say you came alone.”

“What? But that's rubbish. We checked in together, we had breakfast together. Did you ask the waiter who served us? Or the other guests? There were two men in the dining room. They saw Consuela.”

“We have questioned all the staff. None of them has seen this woman you claim was with you. There is no mention of her in the hotel register.”

“Someone must have changed the register,” Max said.

“And why would anyone do that?” Colonel Mantequillas asked.

“I don't know. But she was with me, I swear.” A thought came to him suddenly, and his hopes rose. “We had our passports examined at the airport when we arrived. Check with the airport. They'll have a record of Consuela.”

“We already have. There is no record of a Consuela
Navarra entering the country.”

“But that's—”

“Silence! You've made the whole thing up.”

“No, I—”

“I said
silence
!” The police chief's dark, piercing eyes bored into Max's face. Max felt his skin go cold and he had to look away. “Why are you here?” Colonel Mantequillas demanded. “Why did you come to Santo Domingo?”

Max said nothing.

“Answer me!” the police chief snapped. “Why are you here?”

“To see my mother's lawyer. You must know about my mother.”

“Oh, yes, we know all about your mother,” Mantequillas sneered. “A convicted murderess. A woman who killed her own husband.”

Max wasn't going to allow that to go unchallenged, however frightened he was of the police chief. “That's not true,” he said forcefully. “She didn't kill my dad.”

The colonel's eyes narrowed. “Are you calling me a liar, boy?”

“No, no,” Max said hurriedly. “But there are—” He stopped, biting his lip. It didn't seem wise to go on.

“Yes?” the police chief said. “There are what?”

“Nothing,” Max said.

“There are reasons to doubt her guilt? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Sort of,” Max admitted.

“And these reasons, what are they?”

Max hesitated. But why not go on? Why not tell the chief of police what his force had got wrong?

“What they said happened that night can't have been right,” Max said. “My mum couldn't have dragged my dad's body all that way along the beach. She couldn't have pulled the rowboat down to the water. She's not strong enough.”

“You're saying my officers are incompetent? That their investigation was flawed?”

“Yes.”

Max braced himself for another sharp reprimand, or worse, but the police chief merely laughed. A low, chilling laugh that made Max shiver.

“You have some nerve, boy, I'll give you that,” Mantequillas said.

“I've seen where it supposedly happened. I've been to the beach, looked at the rowboats.”

“So you've been snooping around Playa d'Oro, have you?”

“Why shouldn't I go there?” Max said defiantly. “Or
is that a serious offense here too?” he added rashly.

“Careful, boy,” Colonel Mantequillas growled. “Don't push me too far.”

“I want the case reopened,” Max said, undeterred by the police chief's tone. “My mum's innocent. And
I
want a lawyer. You can't lock me up like this. I've done nothing wrong.”

“You've wasted your trip, I'm afraid. The case will not be reopened. As far as the Santo Domingo police and the Santo Domingo courts are concerned, the case is solved. We caught the right person and she has been duly punished. Nothing you say will make us change our minds.”

“But you're wrong,” Max said fiercely. “You have to look at it again.”

“Don't tell me what I
have
to do. Face the facts, boy. Your mother is guilty and will be in jail for the next eighteen years. You think about that on your flight home tomorrow.”

“I'm not going home tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes you are. You'll be taken back to your hotel now and confined to your room. In the morning you will be put on a flight to Miami, and from there to London.”

“You can't do that,” Max protested.

“I am the police chief of Rio Verde. I can do anything I like here.” Colonel Mantequillas pressed the intercom on his desk and spoke to someone in rapid Spanish. Moments later, the door opened and two uniformed police officers came in.

“What about Consuela?” Max said quickly. “I have to find out what's happened to her.”

“Consuela Navarra does not exist.” The colonel glanced at the two officers. “Take him away.”

The officers took hold of Max and escorted him from the room.

 

The door had barely closed behind them when another door, to one side of the police chief's desk, opened and a short, plump man entered the office. He was wearing a dark-gray suit, a waistcoat, and a tie, and he looked hot and flushed, his face gleaming with perspiration. “My goodness,” Rupert Penhall said. “It's sweltering in here. Haven't you people heard of air conditioning?”

“You don't like the heat, you should stay in London, Mr. Penhall,” Mantequillas said acidly.

Penhall sat down in front of the desk and wiped his brow with a pink silk handkerchief. “I hope I won't have to stay long,” he said. “You did well, Colonel. The boy was well and truly frightened.”

The police chief grinned wolfishly. “Frightening people is my specialty,” he said.

“You think he's found out anything?”

“Nothing we should worry about. He's just a child. What can he possibly do to harm us?”

Penhall pursed his fleshy lips. “He's tougher than he looks, you know. We shouldn't underestimate him.”

The police chief waved a hand dismissively. “Pah, he knows nothing.”

“He went out to Playa d'Oro. He's a bright kid. Everything he said about the beach and the boat was correct.”

“So? What difference does that make? Whatever he does or says, he will get nowhere in Santo Domingo. And
you
will make sure he gets nowhere in England.”

“He went somewhere else this afternoon, when my man, Pratchett, lost him. You should have questioned him about that.”

“Fortunately my men are more efficient than yours. He went to see the Gonzales family.”

“The fisherman's family? They know something?”

“They were questioned vigorously after we killed Gonzales. They know nothing about his activities. They won't be a problem.”

“Keep a sharp eye on the boy, Colonel. He's brave,
determined, like his father.”

“I have everything under control,” the police chief said.

“What about the woman?”

“Consuela Navarra? She is no threat either.”

“Where is she?”

“In a cell in the basement. After nightfall, I will have her taken out to the island.”

Penhall gave a smile of satisfaction. “Good. They will know what to do with her.”