The Far Side of the Sun (44 page)

‘Nice try, Ella. But don’t waste your breath. You would tighten the noose around my neck yourself, let’s not fool ourselves.’ He was sweating. ‘Now get down on your knees and say your prayers.’

Ella didn’t move. ‘Sir Harry was right. Gold has rotted your soul.’

‘Like your lover is rotting yours,’ he sneered and stiffened himself to pull the trigger. His mouth tensed and his eyes were no more than slits. She felt a flicker of satisfaction that he was not finding it easy.

‘No!’ a voice bellowed behind her. A great roar of sound charged down on to the beach from the trees and a shadow plunged towards her, racing over the sand. ‘No! Throw down the gun. Now!’

Hector froze for the split second Ella needed to swing round and see Dan coming towards her like a bull. The sight of him, the sound of him, the sheer physical presence of him on the beach wrenched all fear for herself out of her.

‘Dan, don’t, he’ll kill —’

The gun fired. The sound of the shot ripped through her. Then she saw Dan’s knees buckle, heard a strange whistle of thin sound escape from his lungs, felt the vibration under her feet as the full weight of him hit the sand.

Ella couldn’t scream. Couldn’t find any air to breathe. She threw herself on her knees beside him and clutched her hand over the hole in his shirt, as if she could push the blood back inside his chest.

‘Dan!’

She saw his eyes glaze over. Witnessed the life seep out of him into the grains of sand beneath and only then did she start to scream. The blow to her head, when it came, was a relief.

Dodie stole a bicycle. It was old and hand-painted canary yellow, leaning against the wall of the cathedral, but she didn’t even hesitate. The instant she saw it, she took it.

She pedalled fast. But the five-mile ride out of town to Portman Cay felt more like fifty, because each minute seemed like an hour while her mind filled with images of the danger Ella was in. The road was hot and parched, pockmarked with holes, and Dodie had to squint against the glare as the morning sun climbed above the tall pines. An occasional cart or car rumbled towards her, kicking up dust, and she took it as a good sign. No dead bodies on the roadside up ahead. No panic.

If she hadn’t told Ella about Portman Cay.

What then?

What had she done?

No.

Not this.

Not another death. Through the web of trees Dodie saw the body, a dark smear on the white sand, saw the gulls and ran screaming at them down the slope, arms whirling with rage. The birds abandoned their prize at the last possible moment, screeching up into the skies and Dodie hurled an impotent handful of sand after them.

No. Not this.

A moan rose out of her as she dropped to her knees beside the big policeman and flapped her hands over the black ball of flies that whirred and hummed, crawling on the wound under his shirt. A great wave of sorrow hit her square in the chest. It knocked the breath out of her. She cradled his heavy hand between hers, as if she could bring warmth back into it and persuade blood to flow through its veins once more. Tears seeped from her.

She couldn’t believe that Hector Latcham was responsible for this. It was unthinkable. Yet even as a tremor shuddered through her, she thought the unthinkable.

Ella. Where was she?

She tore off the scarf tying back her hair and carefully bound it around the face of Detective Calder to keep it safe from the scavenging gulls. She had to move quickly. She examined the footprints in the sand, but they told her little because the tide and the wind had been at work. She checked that the beach and the rock pools held no other surprises, then scoured the undergrowth under the trees, poking it with sticks, disturbing lizards and a nest of hutias.

She found nothing. She stood wiping sweat from her eyes and stared up and down the beach. ‘Ella, where are you?’

A breeze rippled the gleaming surface of the waves, sending darts of sunlight to dazzle her eyes. It was a world that dozed as peacefully as the cormorants on the rocks.

‘You’re here, Ella, I know you are. His car is still parked up on the road.’ A big black Buick, a lawyer’s car, had been tucked away in the shade.

That was when she saw the boat. She had been too absorbed by the beach and the lifeless body of Detective Calder, too focused on what was under her feet, but now she swore at herself and tore off her Arcadia dress.

The yacht loomed up above her, as white as a wedding cake. With silent strokes Dodie circled it, noting the tender tied alongside, and lifted herself out of the water on to the ladder.

A wave slapped the hull of the boat, making it rock, and she rolled over the side, crouching on the deck. Just to her right she could see the entrance to a companionway. Dodie wasn’t used to boats but she knew enough to remember that you descended a companionway ladder backwards and that seemed a bad idea. A very bad idea. Whatever was waiting down below would get first crack at her before she could turn. Her breath came fast and shallow.

Flynn. Help me
.

She tried to think like him. To move in that alert way he had and to make no sound. She edged up to the companionway and listened. Silence and heat drifted up to her.

What if she was wrong?

But the tender was tethered to the boat and that meant someone had to be on board. A sudden noise started up below and startled her, the mechanical sound of pumping. If Hector was busy with something, now was the time to climb down. Instantly she slid down the companionway ladder, her pulse pounding, and was hit by the heat and the gloom. Hatches closed. No air. She’d stepped into a narrow saloon of varnished teak and brass with a long thin table and fixed padded benches on each side of it. Slumped on one of them and facing Dodie was a woman.

‘Ella?’

The corn-coloured head shot up. Huge bleak eyes stared at her.

‘Dodie! No, leave quickly. Don’t —’ Her head was shaking back and forth as Dodie moved towards the table.

Just as Dodie registered with shock the handcuffs that chained Ella to a brass rail behind her, a tarpaulin descended over her own head. Strong arms forced her to the floor. She kicked. Screamed. Fought for air. But it wasn’t enough.

The world came back to Dodie in pieces. Blood in her mouth. A pain in her chest. The metallic click of a lighter. A swaying motion that was not just in her head. A hand hot on her cheek.

‘You bastard, you’ve suffocated her.’ It was Ella.

‘She’ll come round.’ Hector Latcham’s voice.

‘Let her go, I beg you, Hector. Just leave her somewhere on the beach. She hasn’t seen you yet, so doesn’t know anything.’

He said nothing, but must have shaken his head because Ella burst out with sudden anger. ‘Haven’t you killed enough? Are you dead inside? Don’t you care that —’

Dodie opened her eyes.

‘Ah, Miss Wyatt, I see you are with us again.’

Slowly Dodie raised her head. It felt as if a jack-hammer was at work in it. She tried to brush her wet hair from its sprawl over her face but her hand wouldn’t come, and she jerked round to find her right wrist handcuffed to Ella’s left wrist. Worse was that they were both attached to a brass rail behind them at shoulder level.

‘You bastard! You murderer!’

‘Enough of that, Miss Wyatt. No good yelling. We’re in the middle of the ocean.’

‘Just let us go.’

‘Now why would I do that? You are proving too dangerous. I should have had my boys finish you off before, but I didn’t want to draw attention to you. It would have had even our sleepy police asking awkward questions if you had turned up dead right after Morrell did. But nice of you to drop in to see us.’ He was standing back against the wooden wall opposite, his grey eyes inspecting her coldly. ‘Interesting dress code.’

She was almost naked. It hadn’t seemed to matter till then, but now her skin flushed uncomfortably.

‘Give her something, Hector!’ Ella had somehow found her diplomat’s wife voice.

With a shrug he unlatched a drawer next to him and threw Dodie a flowered beach sarong that must have belonged to his wife. ‘Here, you might as well be decent when they find you dead.’

Dodie draped it over herself and with Ella’s help tied the knot.

‘Why don’t you just shoot us and get it over with?’ Ella demanded bitterly.

‘Ah, my dear Ella, I really hate to shoot a woman.’

‘Easier to dump us at sea. Is that the plan?’

‘Something like that. Or leave you here on the boat to die of thirst.’

‘What about Tilly? How can you do this to her? She’ll find out, you know she will. She’ll discover what you’ve done to Dan and to us and report you to —’

‘Detective Calder, I admit, is more of a problem.’ Hector glared at Ella as if she were to blame for that. ‘The police don’t like to lose one of their own.’

‘Goddamn you to hell for this.’

‘There’s no such thing as hell, Miss Wyatt. Only this world and what we have in it. I was just doing a deal to make a lot of money. That’s all. Nothing wrong with that. Then came the all-hail Sir Harry Oakes.’ Hector’s face stiffened as he said the name. ‘He believed that this island was his fiefdom and he should decide what did or didn’t go on here.’

‘Hector,’ Ella said, ‘no normal person kills a man for spoiling a deal.’ Her voice was husky from the tears she’d shed for Dan. ‘Let Dodie go, please.’ Her face was looking gaunt and desolate.

‘Tell us,’ Dodie said, ‘what happened?’

He was never going to let them go, she knew that. But if she could keep him talking, the more time that passed, the more she could gather the parts of her head together and come up with ideas.

Hector pushed himself off the wall and lit a cigarette. ‘Christie and I have a good deal going. We are buying Portman Cay from Oakes and developing it into a centre of luxury hotels and a casino for tourists after the war. This war has widened ordinary people’s horizons like never before and they’re going to want more. It can’t fail. Of course the mob wanted to be in on it. They’re paying for the development but we have to put up money too. Big money.’

‘What about the no-gambling laws?’

Hector gave Dodie a sly smile. ‘The Duke is in on it. He’ll make sure the law is changed. That bastard Oakes loaned us millions. He backed us to the hilt till we were both in over our heads and then he pulled the bloody rug from under us.’

‘What?’

‘He called in the loans. I’d have gone bankrupt, Christie too, and we all know the one thing you don’t do is owe the mob money, if you want to keep out of a concrete grave.’ He wiped sweat from his neck. It was very hot down in the small claustrophobic space.

Dodie asked for a drink.

‘No.’

‘Ella needs one. She’s not looking good.’

He regarded her coldly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Please.’ She was hoping to get a drinking glass in her hand. Not much of a weapon, but something.

‘No. Don’t ask again.’

For a moment there was a tense silence broken only by the wind whining through the rigging.

‘That’s where Morrell came in, isn’t it?’ Dodie said. ‘To deal with Sir Harry.’

‘Damn right it is. He was supposed to
persuade
Oakes. Morrell was a mobster, he knew a hundred different methods of persuasion – backed up by your sharp young friend who is now first in line for the hangman’s noose.’ He slammed a fist down on the table. ‘It fell apart. Because Oakes bought Morrell off with his gold.’

‘So you killed Morrell and Oakes.’ The words tasted sour in Dodie’s mouth.

Hector started to laugh, a thin lifeless sound that made Ella drop her face into her hand.

‘Don’t look so horrified, Miss Wyatt. I’m not the only one with his hands dirty. Your American friend —’

‘He has a name,’ Dodie said angrily.

‘Well, do you know that your Mr Hudson went over to the Gregory Sewing Factory before he was arrested and put Stan Gregory in hospital?’ He smiled with grim satisfaction. ‘Ah, I see you didn’t. I rather thought you might have got him to do it for you.’

Flynn. Oh Flynn
.

‘He will see you hang before he does,’ she hissed.

Dodie didn’t see it coming, the sudden explosion of rage that transfused Hector’s face, turning his narrow cheeks purple. He stepped forward and lashed out at Dodie, a slap with the full weight of his arm behind it. Her head snapped back and her eyes rolled in their sockets. She sprang to her feet, making a lunge at him, but he had stepped quickly away and she was anchored to the brass railing by the handcuffs.

‘Listen to me, you bitch,’ he shouted at her. ‘I don’t intend to swing for those murders. Or for yours.’

He bounded up the steps and was gone.

Each step was agony. Because each step should be taking him to Dodie’s side, but instead it was wasted in the narrow channel that ran along the centre of his cell. Flynn paced it, hour after hour, mile after mile. Willing Dodie to return to him before the sky grew dark.

She didn’t listen.

He could see it in her eyes when he told her to stay away from Hector Latcham. She was saying yes, when what she meant was no. He knew it when she ran for the door, he knew that the first place she would go was to Hector Latcham, to protect her friend Ella Sanford. He paced out the hours, cursing himself, cursing Morrell.