Operation Nassau (33 page)

‘I don’t know,’ I said. The other three cars had set off before us rolling silently down the smooth slope.

‘I think he does,’ said Brady. I moved my foot slowly on to the right starter pedal, and he laid his hard hand over mine on the steering-wheel. ‘No. Don’t go yet. I tell you, I don’t believe Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe is lying there in his home, surrounded by a thicket of bodyguards. I’d give even money that before this game is finished, we see him out on the golf-course.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said again, rather dimly. ‘But I can tell you one thing. It was never like this at North Berwick.’

He laughed, and took his hand off the wheel. ‘No. It sure has its own brand of gamesmanship,’ Brady said. ‘And I’m as mixed up over it all as you are. But I wanted to say one thing, Beltanno Douglas MacRannoch. Whoever wins this game, remember I want to marry you. And remember, if you don’t want to marry me, you just have to say so.’

It was a gallant offer, and I was grateful for it, even while remembering what a poor golfer he was. I thanked him and set the cart in motion, white fringe jogging, down the broad pale path under the palm trees, and up to the bright fresh-sprayed green of the No. 1 tee.

The first hole at Great Harbour Cay is a goodish par 5, followed by a short par 3 and a nasty par 4. By the time we all reached hole No. 4, all conversation in my wing of the convoy had stopped. Krishtof Bey, when he remembered, was still deploying a few flamboyant gestures for Johnson, but he didn’t remember so often. Mr Tiko’s golf-cart was silent because Mr Tiko was not a talkative man. Only in cart No. 1 did disharmony ring to the skies, borne on a threatening gale of inspirational rhonci, as James Ulric consigned American golf to the abyss. Mr Tiko was winning.

Mr Tiko was winning because he was, self-evidently, a brilliant player who had no need now to moderate his game to the emotional demands of a Lady Edgecombe. With disbelief we observed him drive off in his neat navy blue sweater and trousers, knees flexed, shoulders and stance parallel to the exact line of flight. Then his No. 1 would come back like a bird. He would hang there a moment, eyes on the ball, left shoulder tucked neatly under his neat chin. Then the club head would sweep down, whee-whack, and the ball disappear.

No. 4 hole was a dog-leg ending just by the commercial plane runway. Mr Tiko placed himself nicely just over half-way down centre fairway, and with his second shot pitched his ball like a peppermint drop exactly on to the green. Wallace Brady, demoralized, landed in the long, pale trap in front of the green and stayed there doing explosive shots with a sand-wedge. Krishtof Bey, after an inspired drive, overplayed his approach shot and landed in the other trap at the back of the green, from which he took a chip and two putts to extricate himself.

My father’s performance I am ashamed to set down on record. Standing spider-knees planted, he took off like a Hawker Harrier at every roar from the airport, and hit fades and banana shots with equal mismanagement. Arrived on the green, he pursued the ball round the pin as if it had black lace underwear and finally sank it at nine. I could hear him shouting as he stumped off to his chariot: he got into it like a man who has just noticed Charlton Heston arrive in the paddock. The Begum leaned over and plugged in his nose filters. Being my father’s mistress is not all fast living and glamour. We all moved round to hole No. 5.

I will not pretend that every hole was as abysmal as this. Each of Mr Tiko’s three competitors recovered in some slight degree from the initial shock of appalled recognition. Wallace Brady steadied up to the level I had become acquainted with on Paradise Island. Krishtof Bey was inspired by a different genius and became steadily more fantastic; pitching; cutting; hitting great cracking drives which either landed him in black disaster or, as in hole No. 6, gave him an unheard-of, against-the-wind hole in one.

Coming back to his golf-cart and Johnson, he flung his arms round the black hair and bifocals, as I remember, and embraced Johnson warmly on either impassive cheek. ‘The angels carried it for me,’ said Krishtof Bey. ‘I have personally shot an eagle. Will you inform Reuters, or shall I?’

But Mr Tiko got a birdie, and was still leading with four holes to two. We left the sea and carried our partners inland with our backs to the wind; past the clutch of Least Grebes in the lake where my father drowned two of his balls and had to be restrained by Sergeant Trotter from following them; past the half-built houses where languid figures sprawled with a tiling hammer, looking down on Mr Tiko’s par 4, and Wallace Brady’s breathless long putt to equal it.

My father had found the white golfer’s aid and was busy brushing his ball in the warm soapy water and towelling it. When I think of the price, I often feel like doing the same, but in Scotland this is viewed as a weakness. In James Ulric’s case, it merely made the ball roll about better, in no special direction. He made to snap a club at that hole, I believe, but remembered the steel shaft in time. The game rolled inexorably on and we rolled with it, we four supporters in our blue and white carriages; separating during play; edging down the fairway after our partners; lifting them, exhausted, from one dark nesting-place to the next, and silently, from the defeat of one green to the ever-blossoming hope of the following tee.

Life, I am sure someone has said, is like a golf-match, and none but old Colonel Bogey himself will ever be sure of the outcome. Anyone betting on Mr Tiko that day, however, would have been on to a pretty safe thing. As the afternoon wore on it became safer and safer; and by the time we reached hole No. 12 the shadows were lying long and blue on the brilliant grass, and it was all too clear that, whatever happened; Mr Tiko had won. I sat in my empty golf-cart behind Johnson and Trotter and the Begum and glanced backwards at the dark shuttered windows of Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe’s house and ahead up the steep incline to No. 13, where eight days ago his wife Denise had met her death. It was, I suppose, an appropriate spot at which to bury my spinsterhood.

On the green, his three rivals were grouped round Mr Tiko and my father was arguing. I supposed that Krishtof Bey and Wallace Brady wanted to abandon the game and my father wanted to finish. So far as I could see, it was only of academic interest whether Krishtof or Wallace came second. Neither the police nor my father was going to declare Mr Tiko’s win null. Perhaps my father thought that when it came to the crunch, I would back out myself. If so, he was wrong. Once and for all, James Ulric was going to learn not to interfere in my affairs. James Ulric was going to have a Japanese son-in-law.

Johnson got out of his golf-cart and ambled in the direction of my father’s white cap. After a moment he left him and came over to me. Behind him, the sky was a pale tender blue, whitening towards the horizon, and the setting sun shone round and red in his bifocals. He said, ‘Brady and Krishtof Bey have decided to go on: are you flattered?’

‘By an exhibition of the male competitive spirit?’ I said bitterly. It was past six o’clock and the light was failing already.

‘It’s the athletic atmosphere,’ Johnson said. ‘Unfortunately your father also wants to go on. His reasoning is perfectly simple. If he wins five out of the remaining six holes, he will come in second.’ He paused. ‘On the other hand, if Krishtof wins the next two holes, your father is out of the reckoning. Would you consider that, in view of his asthmatic history, the Begum should then take him home?’

‘That isn’t history,’ I said. ‘It’s a current event. I can hear his F.E.V. rising from here.’ The roseate glasses did not alter. I got my brain working and said, ‘You want my father out of here in two holes?’

‘Right,’ said Johnson.

I looked at him, and then at my bag, which lay beside me on the white seat. The Frommer still nestled inside it.

‘Right,’ said Johnson again, though I hadn’t spoken. ‘And I want you and the Begum to go with him.’

Wallace Brady was walking towards us. Ahead, Krishtof Bey was sliding into his golf-cart, the pink Bulgar blouse luminescent in the coppery sunset. ‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘I think I’d like to see the game through.’

‘Beltanno -’ said Wallace, and stopped when he saw Johnson. Johnson removed the frown from his face. ‘She knows,’ he said. ‘Medical Adviser to Matsushita Electric.’

Wallace said, ‘Beltanno, there are limits to what a nice girl will do just to spite her old man.’

‘I am going to marry Mr Tiko,’ I said. I think I spoke between my teeth.

‘Are you surprised?’ said Johnson calmly to Brady. ‘Remember, James Ulric’s her father.’

Wallace Brady, clearly, was thinking about it. ‘I’m not surprised,’ he said at length, gloomily.

‘I know,’ said Johnson. ‘You thought you were integrating vertically, Brady my boy. But it’s lateral thinking nowadays, you know. Broad, lateral thinking. And there are a hell of a lot of MacRannochs once you start looking round you.’ He clapped my suitor’s chalk-stripe on the shoulder. ‘Good luck, cat,’ said Johnson gravely. ‘Get out there and slay them.’

By the fourteenth hole, my father was out of the game. It took the concerted efforts of the Begum, Johnson and myself to persuade him to go back to the clubhouse. He maintained that if Mr Tiko could strap up his clubs and travel round as a spectator, it was no less his duty to supervise his own match. The Begum pointed out that as a competitor it wasn’t his duty to supervise anything, and that Johnson, Trotter and I could more than adequately see that the rules were observed. Johnson said he would feel happier if I went back to the clubhouse with my father, and I said there was nothing wrong there that a puff of isoprenaline, eighteen new balls and a miracle wouldn’t correct.

In the end, James Ulric disappeared wheezily into the dusk with the Begum, and I felt a pang as I watched the brave blue and white shade travel behind the palmetto on its angular struts. He was too old for golf anyway, and he had to learn it some day. And he had the Begum, for God’s sake. My father wasn’t marrying a Japanese golfer.

I turned to get back into the cart just as someone beyond the green called, ‘Hullo there!’

Sergeant Trotter had already entered his cart. The other five of us stood where we were. Then Johnson walked down the green to the pathway beyond and said, ‘Hullo?’

From where I stood, I could see the top of a car. Great Harbour Drive, the broad white road marked out along the eastern shore of the island lay, I remembered, between this hole and the beachside green of the next. Reminded of the sea I listened, and there it was, beyond the enclosing jagged horizon of palmetto scrub and dark bushes, the hissing boom of the translucent green waves, there ahead out of sight.

I realized that it had become very quiet. The low buzz of the generators: the whine of machinery; the voices of work gangs had all stopped with the dip of the sun, and there was only the stir of the light wind through the dense, man-high jungle on either side of the fairway and a little whine as it made its way through the beams of the black service hut by the green. Johnson said, without moving farther, ‘Edgecombe? You shouldn’t be here. Is Spry there with you?’

His voice, carrying on the trade wind, floated clearly over the fairway. Sergeant Trotter, waiting in the first cart ahead of me, got out and began to walk over the green. Mr Tiko, after hesitating a moment, returned to his cart and sat down patiently, his small hands on his neat blue knees. Brady and Krishtof stood where they were, Brady with the pin still in his hand. Edgecombe’s voice said, ‘No. I let him off the hook for a bit. Who’s winning?’

‘It’s a Japanese triumph,’ Johnson said. ‘Mr Tiko is champion, and Krishtof and Brady are playing it out for second and third. We’ll come and have a victory drink at your house.’ He paused and said, ‘Look, pack it in, Bart. There isn’t much point in the protective-custody bit if you’re going to rove about like an unravelled jersey. We shan’t be long.’

It was convincingly said, but I stood there, cold in the warm evening, and knew it wasn’t said for Bart Edgecombe’s ears. What was it Brady had already remarked? I bet even money that we’ll see Edgecombe out on this course? And here he was, on his cue; just as the Begum and my father had been hustled out of the way: just as Johnson had tried to get rid of me as well. For this was their last chance, his and Edgecombe’s, to capture their assassin. And this, with Edgecombe in full view of his enemies, was how Johnson had chosen to do it.

I had got to that phase in my thinking just as Johnson said, ‘ . . . shan’t be long.’ I think all of us heard the light rustle of leaves to one side of the path, well beyond Johnson. I know Krishtof looked round. Brady was staring still, frowning, at Johnson. Then a man, a dim silhouette in the bushes, rose to his feet, drew back his right arm and threw something.

I heard Johnson yell, ‘Run!’ and saw the gun appear in his hand as he flung himself on the ground. I did the same. Wallace Brady dropped like a stone, pulling the dancer down with him. Mr Tiko, beyond in his cart, half-rose to his feet. As he did, the world, and Bart Edgecombe’s car with it, exploded into a curdling glare of black smoke and fire.

The blast whipped the palmetto towards us, and the four canopies billowed and jerked, fringes twisted. A red star burned from the bushes where Johnson was lying, and then another: the crack of the gun was lost in the rumble and crash of Edgecombe’s car dissolving and twisting in flame. From the other side of the fairway, fire answered back. Trotter, running bent and incredibly fast, came half-way across the green and flung himself in the lee of Mr Tiko’s blue car. Mr Tiko, his pallid face half-lit by the fire, hesitated a moment and then slid down beside him. Wallace Brady had left the green also, a dark shadow rolling towards me. A moment later he blundered on top of me, his hands hard on my arms, and dragged me behind his own cart. He said, ‘Give me your gun.’

He was breathing hard. I couldn’t see Johnson, and Krishtof had vanished. My handbag with the gun in it lay under me. I said crisply, ‘It’s in the cart,’ and thrust my hand into my bag as I felt him raise himself to look. He glanced down just as I got the Frommer by the barrel, and I saw the surprise and anger on his face as he blocked the sky out above me, his hand ready to snatch. From the dark line of palmetto brush opposite came the snap and sparkle of gunfire, and not far from me a gun thudded in reply: Johnson’s, and then another. A cultivated voice just behind me said swiftly, ‘Do you know. I don’t think we want you to have a gun, Mr Brady.’