Десмонд Бэгли - Bahama Crisis

‘There’ll be a copy of it in every police office in the Bahamas,’ I said grimly.

‘Oh dear!’ said Robinson. ‘That’s bad, very bad. Isn’t it, Leroy?’

Leroy grunted, but said nothing. The shotgun aimed at me had not quivered by as much as a millimetre.

Robinson took his hands from his pockets and clasped them in front of him. ‘Well, to return to the main thrust of our conversation. You tracked Kayles to the Jumentos. How did you do that? I must know.’

‘By his boat.’

‘But it was disguised.’

‘Not well enough.’

‘I see. I told you the man is an idiot. Well, the idiot escaped and reported back to me. He told me a strange story which I found hard to credit. He told me that you knew all my plans. Now, isn’t that odd?’

‘Remarkable, considering that I don’t know who the hell you are.’

‘I thought so, too, but Kayles was most circumstantial. Out it all came, information which even he was not supposed to know about — and all quite accurate.’

‘And I told him all this?’ I said blankly.

‘Not quite. He eavesdropped while you were talking to the man, Ford. I must say I was quite perturbed; so much so that I acted hastily, which is uncharacteristic of me. I ordered your death, Mr Mangan, but you fortuitously escaped.’ Robinson shrugged. ‘However, the four Americans were quite a bonus — I believe the Securities and Exchange Commission is causing quite a stir on Wall Street.’

‘The four Am...’ I broke off. ‘You caused that crash? You killed Bill Pinder?’

Robinson raised an eyebrow. ‘Pinder?’ he enquired.

‘The pilot, damn you!’

‘Oh, the pilot,’ he said uninterestedly. ‘Well, by then I had time to think more clearly. I needed to interrogate you in a place of my own choosing — and so here you are. It would have been difficult getting near to you on Grand Bahama; for one thing, you were tending to live in Commissioner Perigord’s pocket. But that worried me for other reasons; I want to know how much information you have passed on to him. I must know, because that will influence my future actions.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, wishing I did.

‘I will give you time to think about it; to think and remember. But first I will do you a favour.’ He turned and opened the door, saying to Leroy, ‘Watch him.’

A couple of minutes later the pistol carrier came in. He jerked his head at Leroy. ‘He wants you.’ Leroy went out and I was left facing the muzzle of a pistol instead of a shotgun. Not a great improvement.

Presently Robinson came back. He looked at me sitting on the bed, and said, ‘Come to the window and see what I have for you.’

‘The only favour I want from you is to release my wife.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘Not for the moment. But come here, Mangan, and watch.’

I joined him at the window and the man with the pistol moved directly behind me, standing about six feet away. There was nothing to be seen outside that was new, just the trees and hot sunlight. Then Leroy came into view with another man. They were both laughing.

‘Kayles!’ I said hoarsely.

‘Yes, Kayles,’ said Robinson.

Leroy was still carrying the shotgun. He stooped to tie the lace of his shoe, gesturing for Kayles to carry on. He let Kayles get ten feet ahead and then shot him in the back from his kneeling position. He shot again, the two reports coming so closely together that they sounded as one, and Kayles pitched forward violently to lie in a crumpled heap.

‘There,’ said Robinson. ‘The murderer of your family has been executed.’

I looked at Kayles and saw that Robinson was right — buckshot does terrible things to a man’s body. Kayles had been ripped open and his spine blown out. A pool of blood was soaking into the sandy earth.

It had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that I was numbed. Leroy walked to Kayles’s body and stirred it with his foot, then he reloaded the shotgun and walked back the way he had come and so out of sight.

‘It was not done entirely for your benefit,’ said Robinson. ‘From being an asset Kayles had become a liability. Anyone connected with me who has his photograph on the walls of police stations is dangerous.’ He paused. ‘Of course, in a sense the demonstration was for your benefit. An example — it could happen to you.’

I looked out at the body of Kayles and said, ‘I think you’re quite mad.’

‘Not mad — just careful. Now you are going to tell me what I want to know. How did you get wind of what I am up to, and how much have you told Perigord?’

‘I’ve told the police nothing, except about Kayles,’ I said. ‘I know nothing at all about what other crazy ideas you might have. I know nothing about you, and I wish I knew less.’

‘So do I believe you?’ he mused. ‘I think not. I can’t trust you to be honest with me. So what to do about it? I could operate on you with a blunt knife, but you could be stubborn. You could even know nothing, as you say, so the exercise would be futile. Even if your wife saw the operation with the blunt knife there would be no profit in it. You see, I believe she knows nothing and so torturing you could not induce her to speak the truth. In fact, anything she might say I would discount as a lie to save you.’

I said nothing. My mouth was dry and parched because I knew what was coming and dreaded it.

Robinson spoke in tones of remote objectivity, building up his ramshackle structure of crazy logic. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We can discard that, so what is left? Mrs Mangan is left, of course. Judging from the touching scene of reconciliation this morning it is quite possible that you still have an attachment for her. So, we operate on Mrs Mangan with a blunt knife — or its equivalent. Women have soft bodies, Mr Mangan. I think you will speak truly of what you know.’

I nearly went for him then and there, but the gunman said sharply, ‘Don’t!’ and I recoiled from the gun.

‘You son of a bitch!’ I said, raging. ‘You utter bastard!’

Robinson waved his hand. ‘No compliments, I beg of you. You will have time to think of this — to sleep on it. I regret we can waste no more good food on you. But that is all for the best — the digestion of food draws blood from the brain and impedes the thought processes. I want you in a condition in which you think hard and straight, Mr Mangan. I will ask you more questions tomorrow.’

He went out, followed by the gunman, and the door closed and clicked locked, leaving me in such despair as I had never known in my life.

The first thing I did when I had recovered the power of purposive thought was to find and rip out that damned microphone. A futile gesture, of course, because it had already fulfilled Robinson’s purpose. It was not even very well hidden, not nearly as subtle as any of Rodriguez’s gadgets. It was an ordinary microphone such as comes with any standard tape recorder and was up in the rafters taped to a tie-beam, and the wire led through a small hole in the roof. Not much sense in it, but it gave me savage satisfaction in the smashing of it.

As I hung from the tie-beam, my feet dangling above the floor preparatory to dropping, I looked at the door at the end of the room and then at the roof above it. My first thought was that if I was up in the roof when Leroy came in I might drop something on to his head. That idea was discarded quickly because I had seen that every time he entered he had swung the door wide so that it lay against the wall. That way he made sure that, if I was not in sight, then I would not be hiding behind the door. If he did not see me in that bare room he would know that the only place I could be was up in the roof, and he would take the appropriate nasty action.